


Bloodborne Badthingshappenbingo

by MrsLittletall



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Addiction/Withdrawal, Biting, Dragging themselves along the ground, F/M, Fire, Fire mention, Hallucinations, M/M, Nosebleed, Poisoning, Prompt Challenge, Torture Porn, Trapped in a Burning Building, Vomiting, badthingshappenbingo, but they don't play large roles, came back wrong, fighting from the inside, further characters and relationships will be added with more prompt fills, it is mainly Laurence' secretary Florence, made a lab rat, painful transformation, survivor's guilt, there are a few OCs in it, ugh I should have made it a series instead of a chaptered oneshot story, warnings may be updated so keep a look out for them, worked themselves to exhaustion, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsLittletall/pseuds/MrsLittletall
Summary: A writing challenge in which bad things happen to the people of Bloodborne. Because apparently Yharnam isn't fucked up enough.Or: A set of 25 oneshots from a prompt writing challenge. Individual warnings and characters will be noted in each chapter.





	1. Prompt: Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Just like for Dark Souls, I applied for another card for the Badthingshappenbingo Challenge from tumblr and got it send in. Here is a link to my [card](https://mrslittletall.tumblr.com/post/184252655469/here-is-your-new-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo)
> 
> You can feel free to come to my tumblr ask box and request prompts with characters in my ask box. As long as they haven't been claimed yet, I will write a fic for your chosen character and your prompt. 
> 
> I still have two other WIPs going on, so don't expect regular updates. I will post the fics in here whenever they are done.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Characters in this prompt: Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
> 
> Maria has to face that she is still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first fill is a bit short. I tried to go more for the feeling instead of making a story with a plot and keeping it short works better for these kind of story. I hope it is still enjoyable. 
> 
> Warning for suicidial implication in this one.

Maria awoke in a cold sweat, she shot up and was already fumbling for her Rakuyo when she realized she wasn't out in the field, but in her room in her bed in the research hall. It had just been a nightmare. She was safe and sound in, there was no hunt going on. Maria simply had awoken to live through another day. While others didn't. 

Maria let herself fall back into her pillows. It was a tad too early to already get up. Of course, eventually she had to get up, she had took it upon her to look after the patients in the research hall. It felt like some sort of redemption for the atrocious things she had done. Like her role in the Fishing Hamlet. There wasn't a single day going by without her feeling intense guilt at all the lives that had been lost there, only because this villagers had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. It made Maria feel ashamed to still be a part of the Healing Church.

Even though once it all had started so promising... Back then she had been able to escape Cainhurst to attend scholarship at Byrgenwerth. This was where she had met Gehrman and the others. And frankly, these years with their little groups of friend, her, Gehrman, Laurence, Micolash and Caryll, had felt like the best time in her life. 

When Laurence had decided to leave Byrgenwerth to be able to continue the research on the old blood, she had followed alongside with Gehrman, truly believing that they could better the world with the founding of the Healing Church. Back then there still had been hope. All of them had worked hard to achieve their goals and once she had been proud about her role. All had been well until the beastly scourge had hit. 

When it had happened the first time, they didn't even knew that this beasts once had been people. They had come out of nowhere. She and Gehrman had driven them back. Maria still remembered her shock when they had found out. The guilt blooming in her chest. She tried to tell herself that killing them had been the only way. And so the night of the hunt started to plague Yharnam. Nowadays Maria couldn't even count how many beasts had fallen victim to her blade. Beasts that once had been people. People that apparently didn't deserve to live anymore. While she did. 

At the moment there wasn't a hunt going on, but it never left her mind, still visited her in her dreams. She had hoped that in the research hall they could work on finding a cure, but instead a lot of the patients died in the strange experiments they had to undergo. Or they turned into disfigured mutants. Maria had taken them into her care. She would always been there for them, listen to them, soothing their pain. She wanted to do the right thing, atone herself, very unlike Laurence, the vicar.

While they once had been friends and while Maria was sure that Laurence originally wanted to do the right thing, now he would stop at nothing to get his goal. To keep the Healing Church in power. How many skeletons did they had in the closet? 

The feeling of guilt in Maria's chest overwhelmed her. Her gaze drifted to the site and landed on her Rakuyo. She stared deep and hard at it. It wasn't the first time she thought about it. Abandon it all. Ending it. She was barely able to stomach it anymore. But... when she was gone, what would happen to the patients? She was everything they still had. She couldn't vanish. Not now. Not as long as there still was someone counting on her. 

For now she had to live on. She got up to face living in another day. While others didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Nightmaredaisy.


	2. Prompt: Made a Lab Rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of beating Annalise to a pulp, Alfred delivers her to imposter Iosefka and the scientist is very keen on doing some tests on her undead body.
> 
> Characters: Imposter Iosefka, Vileblood Queen Annalise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear, it was kinda fun writing imposter Iosefka, but that turned out a bit dark. Warning for some kind of torture porn.

“Iosefka, I have something for you.” 

Iosefka had turned her back to Alfred, the executioner, still working on her current “patient”. Iosefka... it wasn't even her real name, but she had impersonated the real Iosefka quite some time ago and so she had to get used to the sound of it.

“Oh, Alfred, please tell me, that you finally brought a hunter.” Something twitched inside of Iosefka. Oh, how she wanted to get her hands on a hunter. It always had been a dream of her. 

“It's something far better.”, Alfred said with such a delightful tone that finally prompted Iosefka to turn around. What she saw, indeed made her eyes sparkle. What Alfred was dragging into her clinic, was none other then Annalise, queen of the vilebloods. Her face split into a sadistic grin. 

“Oh, that is indeed better. You did such a good job, Alfred. Would you please tie her down on this stretcher? And then leave, I have some...”, she picked up a new pair of surgeon gloves and put them on before filling a syringe with a reddish liquid. “...research to do.”

As Alfred was dragging the queen to the stretcher, Iosefka prepared a few more instruments, the corner of her eyes on the queen. Alfred had tied her up and gagged her, which explained why the queen had been quiet so far. Even though, quiet wasn't the right word. She certainly was trying to speaks, only that none of the word could be understood. Iosefka vibrated at the thought of undoing this gag and hear her screams. 

After the queen was tied down, Alfred took a few steps back, just staring at her. Iosefka approached them, giving Alfred a little nudge. “Forgive me, Iosefka, I just wanted to indulge in the moment a little while longer.”, the executioner murmured and then left the clinic, closing the door behind him. Iosefka waited for the sound of the shutting door before stepping near the wriggling queen Annalise, trailing a finger down her body. 

“Oh, it is said that you can't die.”, Iosefka said. “Let's see if that is really true.” and with that, Iosefka pulled the gag out of Annalise's mouth.

“Insolence! How dare thou to treat us that way? We are Annalise, the queen of the vilebloods.”, she started to shout right away. Ah, even in this state, she still hadn't lost her will. Iosefka put a finger on the queen's mouth. 

“Shhhh.”, she said. “You are in my hands now.” 

“Thou should know, I am unable to die.”, Annalise fulminated once Iosefka had removed her finger. 

“That makes it all the more exciting.”, Iosefka's face split into a mad grin when she picked up a scalpel and casually sliced the queen's hand. “When I do this, will it heal right away?” Iosefka watched when indeed the wound closed right before her eyes. 

“Fascinating. Fascinating indeed.” Iosefka twirled around. “But what if I do this?” She drove the scalpel deep into the queen's hand. The woman winced, but not a sound escaped her throat. 

“Impressive.” Iosefka leaned over the form of the queen. “You are a true queen indeed. I wonder how far I have to go to get you to scream?” 

“We have been immortal for several decades. Thou won't get a scream out of our mouth.”, the queen said, poor hatred in her voice. 

“I never have backed away from a challenge.”, Iosefka raised both of her gloved hands and a manically grin flashed over her face. “I will make the dear, little queen of the vilebloods scream in terror.”

“You know, mostly I specialize into transforming my patients into a higher being.”, Iosefka started to casually tell while injecting the contents of a syringe into the queen's blood stream. “But as the undying queen and first of the vile bloods, could one say that you already have ascended?” 

There was no answer.

“Whatever.”, Iosefka continued, getting a myriad of surgical tools ready, “I wonder, will you continue to live on even if you are beaten to a pulp? How much damage can your body heal on its own?”

Iosefka ripped a nail out of the queen's finger. Still no peep. 

“Whatever, isn't that boring? That would be the methods of Alfred. He is perfect to get me patients, but he is lacking a certain... subtlety.” 

Iosefka picked up a pincer, forced the queen's mouth open and pulled out a tooth. A wince, a heavy gasp, but no scream. 

“You are a difficult one.”, Iosefka got annoyed, her brows furrowed in anger. She wasn't used to her patients being so sturdy. Most of them begged and pleaded after the first few experiments she had run. 

“And I don't want to get you in a state where you can't move or talk anymore, hmm...”, Iosefka considered her options, suddenly an idea striking.

“Say, my deer queen, I heard that you send your vilebloods to kill hunters and take their blood? So that one day you could bear a child of blood?” Iosefka pulled up her scalpel. The queen suddenly paled. 

“What are thou planning...?”

“Let's take a look if it is already there, shall we?”, the grin on the imposter's face could be described as pure evil. 

When Iosefka got to work, the terrified screams of the queen were pure delight into her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just occurred to me that Annalise is actually wearing a mask in game, but let's just pretend that Alfred had took it off.
> 
> Requested by Talesofmetalandmagic


	3. Prompt: Locked up and left behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some insight into the backstory and end of Old Hunter Yamamura.
> 
> Characters in this one: Old Hunter Yamamura, minor background characters
> 
> Word Count: 1.792

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I looked up stuff about Yamamura, it felt like the most approachable take to write down a little backstory for him, so this is what I did. I hope you enjoy my take ^^

“Shrouded by night, but with steady stride. Coloured by blood, but always clear of mind.

Proud hunter of the church.

Beasts are a curse and a curse is a shackle.

Only ye are the true blades of the church.”

 

Yamamura sat outside cathedral ward on a bench when the prayer sounded once again. What day was it? The third, the fourth? They hadn't listened to him today either.

It had been several weeks after Yamamura had lost his family in a vicious beast attack. Stricken by grief and with the desire for revenge, Yamamura had tracked it down and located the beast near the city of Yharnam. But Yamamura also knew that this beast was way over his head. Thus he had went to the Healing Church to ask for help, but they had quickly denounced him as an outsider, refusing to spare any hunter to chase down the beast. 

Yamamura didn't want to give up so quick though and so he had waited, maybe he just had found the wrong person. But he had no luck the other days. With his foreign features it was clear for every church official that he wasn't a born Yharmanite and the cathedral ward was especially wary of outsiders. 

Yamamura sat on the bench, considering his options while the evening prayer died down. Over the last few days, it had embedded itself into his mind. It became clear to Yamamura that the church wouldn't help him get his revenge. So what should he do, draw in one's horn and just return home? No, he didn't want to. His chest was burning with the desire to get revenge and he had to be honest with himself, he was living for nothing more than that anymore. So he would either get his revenge or die trying. He knew where the beast was. It hadn't moved away from this spot since he had it tracked down. 

Yamamura stood up, adjusted his glasses and grabbed for his weapons, the chikage and the piercing rifle. The first one was a weapon unknown to Yharnam, but well received and used in his own home country. The second one he had grabbed from the local Oto workshop. With one last glance to the cathedral ward, the foreign hunter was off, travelling to the location of his prey. 

Having arrived at the location of the beast, Yamamura hid behind a wall, trying to think of a strategy. This particular beast he was hunting was apparently called a dark beast and emitted lightning from its body regularly. A wrong move could mean a deadly shock.. and that wasn't counting the fiercesome attacks the beast could pull of with its teeth and claws. 

While Yamamura tried to develop a strategy, a voice whispered to him causing the man to startle: “We have seen you turned down by the church, but worry not, the league is hunting vermin and what better way to crush it then by hunting the impurity together?” 

The men that spoke wore a strange bucket helmet, a garb which was buttoned up and overall gave him the look of some kind of military officer. 

“I don't know who you are.”, Yamamura replied. “But anyone who offers to help me on my revenge is considered a friend.”

And so they fought the beast. It was a vicious, fearsome fight and one time Yamamura even thought they wouldn't made it, that the beast would win and devour them all, but ultimately, it collapsed into a puddle of its own blood with a last ear piercing shriek. The man in the uniform stepped forward: “Do you see it, the vermin?” He picked up something seemingly invisible and crushed it in his hand. 

“I thank you very much for returning my honour by finally being able to take my revenge.”, Yamamura said with a custom bow from his home country. “But what are you talking about? What is vermin?”

“Vermin is the impurity of this world. We from the league have made it our goal to crush it all.”, the hunter replied. “Say, what is your goal now? You are a good fighter. The league could use a man the likes of you.” 

Yamamura considered the offer for a moment before responding: “There isn't any place I want to go anymore and when joining the league means hunting beasts down, so that nobody has to suffer of them anymore, I will accept your offer.” 

And so Yamamura was handed a special hat and a staff. And a rune. Which made him able to see the vermin. And as member of the league, it became Yamamura's task to crush more and more of this vermin. For this, he travelled from place to place, finding beasts to hunt and offering his service even to hunters apparently from another worlds, so that they could hunt the vermin together. 

This was his life, day after day after day he would find a target, ring a bell and wait for someone to respond for his ask for help or for someone to accept his help instead. And after each target was down, the small centipede like creature was crushed. Seemingly invisible for everyone who didn't possess the impurity rune. 

But one day, after Yamamura had taken the vermin of his pray, it didn't disappear when he crushed it. Staring at the creature in his hands, he couldn't believe it. That had never happened before. Was his mind playing a trick on him? He averted his gaze, tried to crush it again and when he looked into his hand, the creature was nothing more but dust. It probably had been just some kind of hallucination. 

But the next day, it happened again. And again. He had to crush the vermin several times before they disappeared. Something wasn't right. Yamamura wanted to ask the members of the league if that was normal, if the vermin just had become more resistant, but when he tried to approach the current leader, he could see the vermin crawling around him. Shocked, Yamamura turned around and left before he could get any answers. And this hadn't been the only person that he was seeing the vermin at. It was especially bad whenever he encountered a church hunter. 

That was when it became clear to him. The world around him was impure and simply crushing the vermin wasn't enough anymore. The root of the impurity was it that needed to be crushed. Without even thinking twice about it, Yamamura went for his target and the next thing he knew was, that he was locked down in a cell in the prison block of the cathedral ward.

Being locked in that place, Yamamura could only describe it as bad. He could see the vermin crawling around. No matter how much he tried to crush it, it wouldn't go away. They only went away when he stumbled and accidentally hit his head on the wall of the cell, blood trickling down his forehead. It had hurt, really bad, but at least he had a moment of piece. Luckily, nobody had taken away his blood vials so that he could ease the pain of the injury at last.

Until the church officials came back to interrogate him. They wanted to know why he had dared to attack him. When he murmured about the impurity, they wanted to know what he was talking about. They wanted to know what it was the league knew. But Yamamura felt unable to give them any information. He only was able to see their impurity. He only wanted to crush the vermin and so it became regular for them to beat him up when he turned violent against them. 

Whenever Yamamura laid on the ground of his cell, he heard some other prisoners repeat the church prayer.

“Shrouded by night, but with steady stride. Coloured by blood, but always clear of mind.

Proud hunter of the church.

Beasts are a curse and a curse is a shackle.

Only ye are the true blades of the church.”

Yamamura didn't knew how long it continued. The vermin came back. He bang his head against the wall. The church came to interrogate. After time, the prayer of the church became comforting to him, he repeated it whenever he hit his head on the wall to get rid of the sight of impurity. Taking one of his blood vials against the pain. How long did this go on? Weeks? Days? Yamamura didn't had a sense of time anymore. 

One day, nobody came to his cell anymore. He had waited the whole day, was it even a day? The whole time until his hallucinations returned. The prison door was locked. What would happen to him when nobody would come to see him anymore? Like usual, Yamamura banged his head against the wall, reciting the prayer until the vermin stopped appearing around him, taking one of his blood vials. And he waited. Waited for something, anything to return. But nobody did. It was as if the church had abandoned this place. He was locked, apparently left behind and turning mad. 

Day after day continued. Without food or water Yamamura was eventually done for, but he didn't care. He only cared about the sight of the vermin. Grabbing for another blood vial, Yamamura continued to bang his head onto the wall. It made a soft thud every time it hit. Blood flowed out of the wound and made a puddle on the bottom of the prison cell. No matter how many times he closed the wound with a blood vial, it would open up right again, because the vermin wouldn't disappear anymore. He would see it everywhere around him and what was the worst, even at himself. 

Nobody ever came back to this cell. One day, when Yamamura grabbed for the next blood vial, his hands only embraced emptiness. He was out. He couldn't last any longer. He only had lasted so long because of the constant shots of blood he had taken, but even they hadn't helped him get over this madness. And this was the day, where the continued citing of the prayer and the constant thudding finally ceased and Yamamura's corpse hit the ground. 

A long time after that happened, a hunter came across a certain prison block in an area called the hunter's nightmare. They stopped in front of a door to hear a constant thud and these particular words repeated again and again:

“Shrouded by night, but with steady stride. Coloured by blood, but always clear of mind.

Proud hunter of the church.

Beasts are a curse and a curse is a shackle.

Only ye are the true blades of the church.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanation for my headcanons in this one: It was said, that Yamamura came to Yharnam for honourable revenge, but Yharnam was like “No outsiders”, and because he is a member of the league, I thought “Why not let the church turn him down and the league helped him instead?”
> 
> It seems to be possible to summon Yamamura for Dark Beast Paarl when you kill him early in the nightmare, so I made the beast he hunted into a dark beast. Like, he wanted to get rid of all dark beasts, so that nobody had to suffer his fate. 
> 
> The man of the league isn't Valtr, but wears the same outfit. Judging from the item description, it was passed down from leader to leader, so he is a former leader of the league.
> 
> I don't know if the league and the church didn't like each other or had some kind of rivalry, but that you can summon Valtr for Laurence and Ludwig says a lot in my opinion.
> 
> Requested by paleblooded-hunter


	4. Prompt: Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Laurence has caught the beastly scourge himself, he feels like he is running out of time and desperately searches for the cure.
> 
> Pairing and characters in this prompt: Laurence/Ludwig

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank Anaurael who gave me inspiration for the scenario for this prompt. I love Laurence and it was really nice to explore his character in this oneshot a bit more. I hope you all enjoy.
> 
> Warning for: Vomiting, nosebleed, fire mention

He was running out of time. 

The first symptoms had started with a fever, at least Laurence had believed it was a fever. But once his body temperature rose high enough to actually spontaneous melt the candle he wanted to light, he knew something was wrong. And this also had been the point where he managed to see that his teeth started to get more pointy and fang like.

Laurence, of all people, had managed to catch the beastly scourge. 

He had to admit, his symptoms differed a bit of the usual ones. He wasn't too sure if he maybe caught a new unknown sickness yet, but the rest of the symptoms made sense. His body started to change, a strangely big blood lust (granted, Laurence liked to indulge in blood ministrations all the time, so that wasn't that unusual) and a far more short temper than usual.

So now Laurence was sitting in a corner of the library of the Grand Cathedral of the Healing Church, going over all the books he could think of in search of the cure. 

_We haven't found a cure in all this years. Why should I find one now?_

The thought was deep into the back of his mind, a thought he didn't want to think about, but would come back to him once and once again. What other choice did he have? When he turned, all would be over. All the stuff he build himself up. Nobody could know that he managed to get the beastly scourge. He hadn't even told Ludwig and the both where as close as Laurence let another one be. If anyone would know, the reputation of the Healing Church would be over. Especially after what they had done to Old Yharnam...

Thinking about the day the city was burned down into flames to dam the spreading of the beastly scourge, Laurence noticed that the book he was reading at the moment started to smoke. Cursing, he quickly withdrew his hands and put them into a bucket with cold water he had brought with himself, steam coming from the water. He literally couldn't go anywhere without water anymore, the risk that he would ignite something was too high. 

Sighing, Laurence grabbed a towel to dry his hands and grabbed for the next book. He started to get more and more desperate. They didn't even know where exactly the beastly scourge came from and using the old blood didn't work. Nonetheless, Laurence still tried. The old blood had been able to heal anything, why wasn't it able to heal the stigma that had befallen Yharnam?

Scanning page after page, Laurence felt his vision swam. It already was after midnight. He must have sat in the library for a few hours now. And he couldn't let his daily duties as the vicar of Healing Church slide either. Staring at the pile of books he still intended to go through, Laurence sighed. He was in for an all-nighter. He slowly pulled the next book to scan through its pages. 

The next morning Laurence had met up with Ludwig for breakfast. Because of his status, they couldn't share a room (although Laurence sometimes would slip in the same bed as Ludwig) and so the Hunter didn't had a clue that Laurence had pulled an all-nighter, probably have been out doing his duties the whole day anyway. For Ludwig it was normal that Laurence often was too caught up in his work to be available, so he wouldn't say anything and simply enjoyed the time they could spend with each other. 

However, at the moment, Laurence had drifted off and heard the voice of his boyfriend like it came through a fog: “..ence? Laurence? Are you feeling alright?” 

Laurence opened his eyes, noticing two things. First, that he apparently had fallen asleep at their breakfast table, his auburn curls sprawled out on the table and second, that the soft boiled egg he wanted to eat for breakfast was hard boiled now. 

Laurence shook his head, locking his blue eyes on Ludwig's worried gaze. “I didn't had much sleep.”, he answered truthfully. Ludwig's brown eyes continued to shine with worry. 

“Laurence, are you having a fever again? Maybe think about taking one day off, please?”, he said. Laurence could practically feel the guilt burn in his stomach. Or maybe his sickness was digesting the food he had eaten into lava, because that was how he felt whenever the “fever attacks” flared up. Of course he had lied to Ludwig about having the beastly scourge, hiding every symptom he could, but the “fever” was too apparent. He couldn't hide it from Ludwig. 

“It will be over soon.”, Laurence said as he fanned himself some air. 

“Promise me to take it easy when it doesn't get better.”, Ludwig said with a sigh. “You always push yourself far too hard. Everyone needs a break now or then.” His eyes looked on Laurence. “And be assured, I am going to force you to take this break soon when you keep pushing yourself like this.” 

Even while burning up inside, Laurence couldn't help but shiver at the words of the Holy Blade. He even swore he could see the turquoise glow of the sword when Ludwig spoke this words. He gave Ludwig a faint nod and stared at the rest of his breakfast. Laurence didn't felt much of an appetite anymore. In fact, he started to feel terribly nauseous. Oh no, he needed to puke. 

He hastily stood up and muttered an apology to Ludwig that he needed to get ready for work now, rushing out of the room with one hand clasped over his mouth. Luckily, his office wasn't far away. The first thing he saw was the obligatory bucket with water and Laurence wasted no time to spit out the sparse breakfast he had managed to eat into it. 

Damn, what floated into that water, really was lava. 

He wasn't only feeling like burning from the inside, he was literally burning from the inside. 

Laurence started to wonder in which kind of beast he would turn. 

He quickly shook his head. There were no need to think about this. He just had to discover the cure and he would never find out. However, Laurence still had to go on his daily duties and he was expected at the morning prayer. And he certainly couldn't show up there with the danger of throwing up lava, he still felt pretty nauseous. So Laurence hooked himself up to his personal blood ministration equipment and felt how the old blood flowed into his veins. 

Although the old blood hadn't been able to heal the beastly scourge, Laurence still found that it helped to suppress the symptoms at last, making him able to go around a few hours without feeling like burning or intense nausea. While Laurence waited for the old blood to completely join his own blood stream, he heard a knock on the door. 

“Laurence, you barely have eaten anything. I am just worried about you. Are you sure you are fine?”, Ludwig's concerned voice sounded through the door. 

Laurence, who had leaned his upper body on the table, righted himself up, replying: “I am fine, Ludwig. You know I always turn out fine, regardless what happened. Would you please leave me alone, I need to prepare for work.”

“... You are hanging on the old blood again, right?”, Ludwig sounded through the door, dismissive tone. Ludwig always had found that Laurence overused the old blood and wouldn't even shy away from pulling the needle out of Laurence' arm, creating quite a few bloody messes and bruises at Laurence expense. Needless, Laurence heard the heavy boots of the holy blade trotting away. Laurence sighed and relaxed, laying his upper body and head back on the table. He needed to make it up to Ludwig somehow. Laurence felt bad enough for lying to his boyfriend about his sickness, he didn't deserve the treatment he put him through lately. 

After the blood bag was completely emptied into Laurence' blood stream, he unhooked himself from the equipment, pressed a handkerchief on the puncture until he was sure it wasn't bleeding anymore and changed in his white church robes to attend to the morning prayer. 

Laurence took a last glance in the mirror to see if he looked representable enough. By the great ones, he looked like crap. Eyes sunken, dark eye circles, pale complexion, the curls which framed his face where damps with sweat and when he opened his mouth that fangs felt so apparent. However, it was going out like this or shut himself in his room and raising even more suspicion. With another sigh, Laurence turned around to leave his office. 

To his surprise, Laurence managed the morning prayer mostly fine and nobody even commented on his crappy look. Perks of being the vicar probably, nobody would ask questions (unless the person was Ludwig of course). But just as the prayer ended with the obligatory “Bless us with blood”, Laurence noticed that one of his infamous nosebleeds had started. 

Which wouldn't be too bad, although a bit embarrassing, it had happened before, the problem was, that the blood was hot and he could already hear the floor sizzle where the blood had dripped down. Swallowing a curse, Laurence quickly turned around and left the scene, hoping that nobody would notice his absence, pressing his left hand in front of his nose, retreating into the hallway and rushing into an unoccupied room, intending to waiting for the nosebleed to stop. 

When the nosebleed finally stopped after a few minutes, Laurence needed two things.

First, to wash his hands, second, he needed to change into clothes that hadn't burn holes all over where the blood had dripped down. Surprisingly, the hand that got covered in that burning blood, didn't feel burned at all. 

“It is as if fire is becoming a part of me.”, Laurence muttered to himself, scanning the hallway if it was safe for him to walk it and rushing into his office once he could see nobody passing by. 

After Laurence had managed to make himself presentable again, eyeing the blood ministration equipment again, but decided against it, not so soon at last, he could go on his daily duties. He didn't feel like it. He wanted to continue the research for a cure, but sadly, he was the representation of the Healing Church was expected to be around. At least Laurence would be able to continue a bit of his research when he would meet up with the heads of different groups in his office. There was a bit of wait time between each appointment. He went to the library to fetch a few books and then went off to his daily duties. 

While Laurence managed to keep up his composure just fine when interacting with others, the sleepless night got to him and he caught himself more and more falling asleep for a few seconds or even minutes before waking up and frantically curse how much time he had wasted. It became especially bad when he had to wait during the appointments, falling asleep over the books more than actually reading him. 

Using a bit of the water he had near him all the time to splash himself, trying to get the sleepy feeling out, Laurence told himself he was fine. He could do it. He didn't need any sleep. He could sleep when he was cured. 

After Laurence was finally done with his duties, he snatched the books, his notes and another bucket and practically rushed to the research hall, he didn't even think about meeting up with Ludwig for dinner this time. Laurence was just too caught up in the work. Maybe he would reach a breakthrough today. When he was able to heal the beastly scourge, this would not only mean that he himself would be cured, but it would even further cement the Healing Church's position in Yharnam. 

However, the lack of sleep finally overtook Laurence and he messed up one of the experiments, which slightly blew up and left him coughing his lungs out, knees on the ground, wheezing between coughs. The smoke he saw rising, was that from the failed experiment or did he literally cough up smoke? He couldn't say with his watery eyes. And before Laurence was able to pull himself up, continuing his research, his body gave up on him and he passed out. 

When he woke up, Laurence found himself in his room, feeling that familiar burning feeling. Oh no, hopefully the bucket with water was near, before he could ignite his sheets, but Laurence noticed that he wasn't covered with a blanket. Instead, his forehead, wrists and ankles were covered in cold compresses. Laurence relaxed, that would suffice to keep him from burning things. 

But wait, who actually had applied these things? Carefully turning his head, Laurence saw Ludwig sitting next to his bed, adjusting the compress on his forehead. “Ah no, Laurence, don't move yet, you were awfully hot when I found you.”

“... How did you know where to search?”, Laurence asked. 

“It was obvious.”, Ludwig stated. “Where else would you be other than at the library or the research hall? I am just glad that I found you in time. I don't know how you were able to suffer something like a heat stroke in the middle of the night, but it happened.” 

Laurence winced. Was Ludwig really believing his own words? Laurence had done his best to hide his sickness from him, but now it was too late. Ludwig had found him like this, burning up. He couldn't believe that it was a simple heat stroke, especially with all the fevers Laurence did had beforehand. 

“It's a symptom of your sickness, right?”, Ludwig said, eyes locked on Laurence.

“... You know?”, Laurence asked. Ludwig hadn't mentioned that it was the beastly scourge, he just called it a sickness. Maybe he really didn't know. Maybe he thought it was a different sickness. After all, Laurence symptoms differed from the usual ones. 

“Of course, Laurence, or did you think I didn't notice your fevers, how often you excused yourself with flimsy reasons and that you wouldn't let me into your office anymore, practically begging for me to go away? Why would you do that if not having something to hide?”, Ludwig stared at Laurence with a scolding look in his eyes. “And then you overwork yourself despite being sick. The librarian has said to me that you spent the whole night in the library, practically having left it when she returned in the morning to reopen it.” 

“It could also mean that I just have been there early.”, Laurence said with a sheepish grin. As the Vicar, he had a master key for the whole cathedral and could go and leave whenever he pleased. 

“And then falling asleep at breakfast? And having this dark circles under your eyes? No, Laurence, you can't smooth talk your way out of this. You overdid it and I told you, I am forcing you to rest when this happens.” 

Laurence shot up when he heard this, groaning, that had been a mistake, it made his head swirl. He felt how Ludwig gently caught him and forced him back to lie down, reapplying the compresses that had fallen off in the process. 

“I don't have a choice, I am running out of time.”, Laurence murmured. “I have to find it before... before...” _before he turned into a beast._ Laurence couldn't end the sentence. 

Ludwig stroked over Laurence' scalp, following one of his curls to the very end. 

“You can admit that you are afraid. I, too, have never seen a sickness like this before. But I am sure, you will find a cure. And don't forget, you aren't in this alone. You have the whole church under your command and please don't forget that I will forever be at your side. But you have to allow me to be your guiding moonlight.” 

Laurence lips parted into a grin. It was very Ludwig to say a corny thing like this. 

“Alright.”, he said. “You got me. I will rest for a while.” 

“See, that is the spirit.”, Ludwig said, continuing to stroke Laurence' head. “Now how about you try and sleep for a bit? At least until your body cooled down.” 

“As long as you don't leave my side.”, Laurence murmured, eyes already closing. While he was definitely running out of time soon, Ludwig was also right that he would go nowhere when he overworked himself like this. 

And, who knows, maybe the breakthrough was just around the corner. For now, he needed to rest. Laurence drifted to sleep under the gentle touch of his boyfriend. 

He could continue his research tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it is a deeply rooted headcanon of mine, that Laurence started his symptoms of the beastly scourges with feeling like burning from the inside and igniting or melting things around him. However, I have worked a few other headcanons from the fandom inside, but I don't remember anymore who came up with what. When you want credit, please tell me ^^
> 
> Requested by starfolk7 on tumblr, here on AO3 known as windsabove.


	5. Prompt: Came Back Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Gehrman the first Hunter, The Plain Doll, The Good Hunter  
> Word Count: 578
> 
> The last time the plain doll looked a bit more …complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, I get the plain doll as request for “Came Back Wrong” when pretty much every boss in the game would have been a given for this? xD   
> So, I guess this turned more into fluff than angst. Regardless, I hope you can enjoy.

“Damn hunters, always using the doll as target practice...”, Gehrman murmured, staring at the mess of body parts lying in front of him. 

“At least the upper body is pretty intact this time.”, he continued talking to himself while attaching the left arm back to the shoulder joint of the doll, carefully setting the body aside. Out of his sight the upper body of the doll crawled over to her clothes and put the upper part of them back on. 

“The legs on the other hand...” They were in complete shreds. It surely would take Gehrman some time to repair this. Or it could even be easier to make her a complete new sets of legs. While Gehrman prepared his work, he didn't notice that the upper body of the plain doll started to crawl away. 

The Good Hunter just had slain a prey and were eager to channel the blood echoes into strength, so they returned to the Hunter's Dream. When they opened their eyes, they noticed the doll wasn't there. 

Oh right, last time they wanted to test a new weapon and had used her for target practice, which left her body destroyed. It hadn't been the first time they had done this, but so far the doll had always been back when they returned into the dream. Shrugging, they went into the direction of the workshop, maybe the doll was praying at the grave behind it, sometimes she did that. 

Just as the Good Hunter set their foot on the first step, they saw something coming crawling out of the workshop. They instantly grabbed their weapon, backing away, this wasn't right, the hunter's dream should be safe, there shouldn't be any beasts here. The “creature” seemed to have some difficulty moving and practically fell down the stairs, leaving the Good Hunter staring at it baffling. This white hair, this dark clothes, this fair face...

“W... welcome home, Good Hunter.”, the creature spoke. “W.. what is it you d.. desire?” 

That was – indeed - the plain doll. Or well, half of her. A feeling of doom splashed over the Good Hunter. 

“That was my fault, right?”, they asked. 

“Oh Good Hunter, don't worry.”, the doll smiled at them. “Gehrman simply hasn't been able to finish my repairs now. And I sensed that you require my service.”

The Good Hunter didn't say anything, instead they kneeled in front of the doll. 

“I am sorry.”, they said. 

“For what?”, the doll asked, genuine confusion in her voice. 

“For doing this to you.”, the Good Hunter gestured at her upper body that supported itself with her hands. 

“I am a doll, being hit with a weapon doesn't hurt me.”, the doll smiled again. “When you need to test your weapon at me, I will be at your service.”

“This.. this was still wrong, even if you are fine with it.”, the Good Hunter spoke. “You are alive. Even when you don't feel pain, I shouldn't have done this to you. I am sorry, truly.” 

The plain doll stared at them. “So does that mean that you don't need my service?”

“I will need it. But first! I will go and help Gehrman repair your legs.”, the Good Hunter spoke, rushing to the workshop. 

The plain doll watched after them. “Oh Good Hunter.”, she smiled. “I hope one day you find your worth in the waking world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by thefatladysang from tumblr


	6. Prompt: Fighting from the Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Characters in this prompt: Fellow Outsider Gilbert, The Good Hunter
> 
> After Gilbert turns into his beastly self, he fights with his beastly side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert, I have NEVER been more glad for you turning into a beast, because my request prevented me from using any bosses. Even though: Seriously?! Almost every boss would have been perfect for this and I wasn't able to use them?! xD

_I can even die human._

A glance in the broken shard of a mirror after that intense pain had ended, revealed that this has been a lie. A lie he had told himself far too long. He wasn't a human anymore, what stared back at him was a beast. 

A hand shot up to his head. It hurt. It hurt so much. Thinking... hurt. Gilbert only wanted...

_blood_

No, not that. He didn't want that. He didn't want to face the same fate as Yharnam did...

_blood. outside._

Gilbert's body moved without his consent. He didn't want to. He didn't want to _hurt_ anybody. Or get hurt himself. Didn't his beast self felt fear? He tried his best to stop his body, to just turn around, cower under a table, some rubble. Wait until it was over. Wait until the hunt was over. 

But he felt his consciousness dwindling...

_blood. WANT!_

Gilbert faintly realized that the window that had blocked him and Yharnam from each other burst into countless shards, a few of them cutting through his arms and legs. The beastly self he had become growled and then awkwardly got up, sniffing the air. 

_sweet blood_

Through the beastly eyes, Gilbert saw that they locked onto a nearby lamp. There was someone standing there. Someone wearing a coat, someone wielding a saw. Gilbert's eyes grew wide in fear. 

Retreat, he needed to retreat. That person meant danger. But his body didn't obey. It was only screaming for 

_BLOOD_

As the Hunter realized the movement, they braced themselves, clutching their weapon, asking “Who is there?” Their gaze fell onto the broken window and their voice changed into concern: “Gilbert, are you there? Please answer me, are you alright?!”

Gilbert wanted to open his mouth, tell them that it was him, that he wasn't alright, that he didn't knew how long he still would be there. But all that came out was a beastly shriek. The Hunter turned around in an instant, their eyes on him for only a brief second before they already waved their weapon. 

The beast wanted to lunge, Gilbert didn't want to. It ended up as a half lunge and him awkwardly plummeting onto the ground when the saw blade of the hunter connected with his arm. Gilbert shrieked in pain, the fear taking over as blood sputtered out of the wound, he pressed himself against the wall, trembling. 

This reaction prompted the hunter to stop. “A beast that is afraid even though I haven't using fire?”, they murmured to themselves, coming closer, weapon still drawn, always on edge. 

Gilbert had to act as long as he still had his mind intact. He raised both hands, showing that he wasn't dangerous. That he didn't want to be dangerous. 

“....Gilbert? Is that you?!”, the eyes of the Hunter grew wide, as Gilbert managed to nod his beastly head. The smell of blood coming from the hunter, it was overwhelming. The Hunter kneeled in front of him, only saying one single word: “...Why?”

Gilbert so so much wanted to answer them, but he couldn't. His voice was gone, his consciousness was clinging to a bare thread and that smell of _BLOOD_ made him mad. 

His consciousness faded into a black swirl when his beastly body lunged and bit itself deep into the hunter's arm. The next thing Gilbert knew was that he was a bleeding mess on the ground. 

Was it true? Did fate had one last mercy for him?

He felt how the Hunter embraced him, some wet fell down on his fur: “Gilbert, I am so sorry....”

He wanted to say it was alright. He really wanted to say it to them, but he only could whimper. 

At least he could die human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Thefatladysang


	7. Prompt: Dragging themselves along the ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much Simon's questline written out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I am very sorry that it took me SO long to fulfill this request. I really fell out of doing the bingo prompts and had too many other stuff instead that I wanted to write. 
> 
> This piece is pretty much Simon's dialogue with the bits we don't know filled in. Enjoy.
> 
> Warning for Major Character Death.
> 
> Anon Request from tumblr: "For the bingo: may I suggest Simon with "Dragging Themselves Along The Ground"? He had to get to that hut in the Fishing Hamlet somehow lmao"

Simon observed the Hunter who slowly had walked in the room, taking a look around. They didn't look blood drunk for once. Once they noticed him they came over and stared at him with wide eyes, burning with thousand questions. Simon decided to give them a little explanation of the place they were in:

“You're a hunter with your sanity, aren't you? Must've taken a wrong turn then, eh? Well, we're more alike than you think. This is the Hunter's Nightmare, where hunters end up when drunk with blood.”

The Hunter listened with interest and once he had finished, they stared at him, clearly asking for more. Simon gave them his answer. 

“You've seen them before. Aimless, wandering hunters, slavering like beasts.”

The Hunter nodded at this words, a sudden understanding in their eyes. Simon continued his explanation after they gestured for him to go on: 

“This is what the poor fools have to look forward to. So, don't be brash, turn back before it's too late. Unless, you've something of an interest in nightmares?”

Now it was their turn. Simon waited with growing anticipation. After a good minute of waiting, the Hunter gave him their reply.

_Nightmares are fascinating._

Looked like they hadn't been fallen on their mouth like he first had thought. This had been the first words they spoke and it felt for him that it had been the last for now. But this... 

Simon couldn't help but grin under his bandaged face. How long had it been that not only a hunter that wasn't blood drunk had entered the dream but also one that was keen on finding out its secrets? The deserved an answer. And... a warning:

“Ahh, yes, I see… You sense a secret within the Nightmare, and cannot bear to leave it be. As if the spirit of Byrgenwerth lives on within you!”

At the mention of the old college he noticed how the Hunter briefly tensed. He continued: 

“Such inquisitive hunters will relish the Nightmare. But beware, secrets are secrets for a reason. And some do not wish to see them uncovered. Especially when the secrets are particularly unseemly… “

The Hunter gave him a long elaborate stare before waving to him and leaving to explore the nightmare. As soon as they were out of sight, Simon started to follow them in silence. 

They were a skilled one, managing to plow through the myriads of beasts and drunk blood hunters as if it was a graceful dance. They entered the nightmare cathedral, clearly taken aback by the giant flaming cleric beast resting there, but overcame their fear and snatched the item it hold right out of its claw, then followed the path until they came to the part where Ludwig the Accursed usually roamed around. 

It had been a spectacular battle. Halfway through the once Captain of the Church Hunters even managed to regain his humanity, thanks to the guiding moonlight. Once the Hunter had released him from his sorry state as an amalgamated monster the only thing left was his head. It even was still able to talk. 

Simon expected the Hunter to give Ludwig the last blow, not let him live without a body and the knowledge of what he did. 

They surprised him however. First, by not telling Ludwig the truth. And second, by letting his body lay where they found it. 

Simon sneaked into the building and eyed the severed head of Ludwig with one half pity and one half disgust. This guy didn't even knew what really had become of his church hunters. 

...Maybe it was better that the Hunter had told him a sweet lie. Right now the head had fallen into some kind of uneasy sleep. Simon pulled out his weapon of choice, the bow blade and gave the head a quick ending. 

Shortly after he had done this, the Hunter returned to the building, apparently having forgotten something and gave him a confsued look when they noticed that the head wasn't moving anymore. Simon explained his reasoning to them.

"Oh, he's well and truly gone, now. A tragic figure. But he will shame himself no longer. He died with his ideals untarnished. He was a true hero, and earnt that much, at least. Here, this is Ludwig's guiding Light. The blinding thread, that lead, and mislead, that consummate hero. The poor brute."

The Hunter didn't say a single word. They just looked from the head to him and in their eyes there was this burning question, like if they wanted to ask “why?” For someone who barely talked, they were astonishingly expressive with their questions. Simon spoke:

 

“Do you know why the Hunters are drawn to this Nightmare? Because it sprouted from their very misdeeds. Things that some would rather keep secret. A pitiful tale of petty arrogance, really. High time someone exposed the whole charade."

Now, now, go on ahead.

You seek nightmares, and the secrets within, do you not?" 

The way to the research hall was open for the Hunter now. Simon sneaked in before them and awaited them right in front of the entracce after the giant elevator. They were getting close to uncover the real secret and he had to guide them on the right path. 

Once the Hunter had peaked into the Research Hall, they came back to him, cocking their head, their gaze wanting answers. Simon told them the truth. The truth he once, in another life, had lived for himself. 

“Oh, hello. Not a pretty sight, is it? The true face of the blood-worshipping, beast-purging Healing Church. But that's not all. You seek the secrets field by the Nightmare, do you not?vThen here's what you must do. Climb the Astral Clocktower, and kill Maria. She hides the real secret… “

The next part took the Hunter a good while. The Research Hall was huge, confusing and a majority of the patients were rather aggressive. Time and time again, they appeared back at the lamp, both the advantages and the curse of a dreaming hunter, brushing off their coat and ran back into the Research Hall. 

Eventually some shifting was heard, the architecture of the Research Hall changed and Simon hid himself when the Hunter took care of the Living Failures who guarded the clocktower and then finally faced Lady Maria. This was a battle of the utmost grace as both hunters clashed at each other. 

Lady Maria would have easily been able to win this round, but the Hunter was a dreamer and could come back to challenge her again and again. It was impressive to see how they got better at predicting her movements and eventually overcame her. 

Finally, the way to the real secret was free. Simon snuck his way past the Hunter who seemed to stay for a while, maybe praying for the poor soul of Maria, and made his way into the Fishing Hamlet. 

The uncovering of the secret was so close now, it was within his arm's reach. 

That was when he heard the tolling of the bell. 

With an uneasy feeling he looked behind him, grabbing his bowblade. What appeared in front of his eyes wasn't a happy sight. The church assassin. The one in the beast hide hood. The one normally locked in a cell below the Research Hall. 

It became very apparent for Simon that he had become his mark. 

 

Simon picked up the fight and managed to win but not without sustaining a few injuries on his own. This was fine, he had blood vials with him. He treated the injuries done to him with them and moved on. The uncovering of the secret was within his reach. He wouldn't give up now.

But... the tolling of the bell didn't cease. 

The beast-hide assasin came back for another round. And he was a tough one. Even though Simon managed to banish him this time too, it cut his blood vial supplies in half. 

He wouldn't hold through much longer when he would come back again. 

And he came back, again and again, each and every time Simon picked up the fight, banishing him until his very last blood vial had been used. 

It barely had managed to cease the bleeding of the multiple wounds, his bones ached and a few of them felt broken. Would the assassin come back for him again, he would be done for. 

Simon tried to get up from his kneeling position only for his legs to give out under him and he fell in the ground of the hamlet, water and and mud splattering from his impact. He hissed in pain as the mud mixed with salt water seeped into his open wounds. 

Walking was out of the question. 

What also was out of the question was staying here. He couldn't die here. Not after he had come so far. 

His legs had given up, but Simon's arm still had enough strength to get him moving. 

Slowly, very slowly, Simon started to work on his body along the ground, having to catch his breath every few inches. The muddy saltwater seeping into his wounds didn't made the pain he already experienced any better. It felt like hours had passed before he even had made a few feet of the way. 

He had made a botch of things. He had been found out. Even in the nightmare, the church had its ways to make sure that their secret kept been uncovered. 

At least... at least, there still was the Hunter. They wanted to find out the secret too. Simon had to find them... or at least find a place where he could wait for them. He steeled his body and dragged himself along until his tired arms gave out and all strength left his body, his face falling in the mud. 

If the Hunter also would have to deal with the assassin...? 

As Simon pulled his body back up with great effort, he greatly regretted that he never had taken care of the assassin at his cell. He had a perfect key for this lock with him. But as someone who never had heard the bell's tolling he always had been talking about, it hadn't been of any use. 

Until now.

He truly played the prize for his ignorance at this very moment. 

The last few meters to the hut were a drag. He barely could even get his upper body up anymore. At his rate, Simon had to drag pretty much his whole body over the ground. When he had been covered in blood before, now he was covered in blood and mud and should he manage to survive this whole ordeal, he wasn't too sure if he would survive the aftermath of the infection that would surely await him. 

As he finally made it into the hut, he let his head fall down on the ground, gasping. Not a moment too soon. Not a moment too late. The Hunter had just entered the hut, coming near him with a concerned look. He gave them his final words as he pulled out the key and handed it to them:

“…Oh, you, I'm afraid, I've made a botch of things…   
…I can hear the bell, now…  
…The beast-hide assassin, he's after me…  
…Again and again…  
…It never ends…  
…Please, I need you to do something…   
…This village is the true secret.  
Testament to the old sins…  
…It feeds this Hunter's Nightmare…  
…Please, bring to an end to the horror…  
…So our forefathers sinned?  
…We hunters cannot bear their weight forever…  
…It isn't fair, it just isn't fair… “

After Simon had spoken his words, he could feel how the last ounce of strength left him. So he didn't made it. He would die on this very ground of the hut. As his conscience faded, the hand that still had clutched the bowblade as he had himself dragging along fell on the ground, letting go of the weapon. 

The last thing he saw was the Hunter picking it up and a kind of new found resolve in their eyes.


	8. Prompt: Hallucinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Micolash and Laurence have a drink and Micolash admits to seeing things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really know where to go with this, so I worked a few headcanons about my friendship of Micolash and Laurence in it. I also think that Micolash and Rom once have been a couple, so that is why the ship tag is there. 
> 
> I pretty much just wrote down what crossed my mind. I hope it is still enjoyable.

As the knock on the door sounded, Micolash interrupted his work and tiredly rubbed his eyes. 

After he hadn't moved from the spot for a full minute, the knock got repeated and Laurence' voice sounded: “Micolash, are you there?” 

Micolash finally moved to the door, spied through the keyhole and indeed it was Laurence standing there, with a bottle of wine. Micolash opened the door a tiny bit and asked: “What do you want?” 

“Just wanted to come around for a drink, like the good old times.”, Laurence said. 

...Why not? Lately Micolash and Laurence rarely had spoken with each other, the latter being too busy with running the church as a Vicar and Micolash to captured in his own research. 

“Come in.”, Micolash said and opened the door completely. Laurence pretty much waltzed into the room and grabbed two wine glasses from the cupboard, putting them on the table before pouring wine into them. 

“You haven't changed the layout of this place in five years.”, Laurence said, sipping on his wine, looking around. 

“Has it been five years already...?”, Micolash asked. Time seemed to be a strange construct lately. Sometimes it felt like yesterday as they all had been children and played in the lake around Byrgenwerth. 

“Yes, indeed. Time really feels like it flies, right? It has been ten years since we discovered the holy blood now..”

Ah, Laurence' favourite topic. He hadn't gotten tired of it back at Byrgenwerth, he wouldn't get tired of it now that the blood practically made Yharnam into what it was now. 

“How is the church doing?”, Micolash asked, taking a sip from his own glass. 

“Oh, like always.”, Laurence said. “People come to us for the blood ministration, we are searching for funds to keep everything going, which means I have to attend a lot of aristocrat parties and Florence gets upset with me because I drink so much at them, but they are so boring, nobody wants to talk about research there and we have to organize the hunt regularly and still no success in finding a cure for the beastly scourge.” Laurence closed his mouth once all this words had pretty much poured out of him without pause and then took another sip from his wine. “And what about you? How is your research going?” Laurence paused and glanced at Micolash. “And when will you finally change out of this old Byrgenwerth school uniform? It is completely tattered already.” 

“I like my uniform.”, Micolash said. “It's comfortable. I don't want to wear something else.” 

Before he could answer the question about his research, Laurence had already spotted the cage. “Is this what you are working on? What are you planning to do with this?”, he asked. 

“I believe this cage can act as catalyst for communicating with the Great Ones.. and even reaching their realm.”, he answered. 

“Are you planning to wear this? This must look overly stupid.”, Laurence said. “Besides, we already have the choir for this. Why don't you join them when your research is practically the same?”

“...I don't like their methods.”

“Not having a good enough singing voice, huh?”

“No... it's... the blinding.” 

Micolash glanced to the side, wanting to look anywhere instead at Laurence. He never had liked the dark. Too many bad memories from his youth. The choir attempted to communicate with the Great Ones by blinding their eyes, to develop eyes on their brain. 

While he agreed that they had to develop eyes on their brains, he preferred another method though. And that is what the cage was there for. 

Laurence didn't knew about this, but he had found a small following and they usually would meet up in the unseen village. Micolash truly believed that his group would surpass the choir at all points. And Laurence would have to admit it too. 

Even after all this years, their rivalry had never ended. Micolash had to admit he looked forward on seeing the look on Laurence' face when they succeeded with their ritual. 

“Well.. it's your choice.”, Laurence said, already pouring a second glass of wine for himself. Micolash was still busy with the first one. 

Micolash wondered if Laurence only had come by to tease him, but he felt that his friend seemed to be genuinely concerned for him. He just never had an easy time to admit it. 

Maybe it was the time to confess something particular to him. 

“Say, Laurence, have you ever... seen things?” 

“Huh?”, Laurence asked. “What do you mean?” 

“Like.. shadows. Or creatures. Or... gone loved ones.” 

Micolash's gaze was directed at a corner of his room.

He actually hadn't stopped seeing her for a good while now. 

Was he going mad...? 

“Shadows, yes, I've seen them.”, Laurence replied. “Just hallucinations from sleep deprivation though. Nothing of this is real. It should vanish when you go to sleep.” 

“Doesn't it concern you that we are both seeing shadows?”, Micolash asked, having a hard time detaching his gaze from the corner. 

“Pure coincidence.”, Laurence said. “Who even says they are the same shadows? You have to ignore them. They are not real.” 

This reply frustrated Micolash. For a man looking for a way to ascend into the stars, Laurence could be awfully rational. He probably wasn't able to see the great one on Odeon Chapel yet.

And even if, he probably would deny it was real. 

And he surely wouldn't be able to see the image of Rom staring at Micolash from a corner, with her long black hair and her dark eyes. 

“Why do you ask? Are you having trouble sleeping lately?”, Laurence asked. “I mostly start to see things whenever I haven't slept for days. Do you want some medicine to take care of it maybe?” 

“No.”, Micolash shook his head. Even sleeping didn't make the picture go away. He was sure that the shadows and the great one on Oden Chapel were real, but Rom? She shouldn't even be here. She had stayed in Byrgenwerth... And one day, she had vanished completely. 

Micolash hadn't notice that his hand had started to tremble and he had knocked his wine glass over, the reddish liquid dripping onto his cloak, the glass rolling from the table and shattering on the floor. 

“Oh damn, are you alright?”, Laurence asked, getting up. “...How about you dry yourself up and I go clean up this mess?” 

“I suppose.”, Micolash said, pointing at a cupboard where he kept his cleaning supplies. 

A short while later Micolash's cloak had been dried as good as he had managed (he still should wash it later) and Laurence had wiped the table and floor and put all the glass shards into a trash bag. Now Laurence was going to fetch another glass, as Micolash stared at Rom again.

Or was she staring at him? 

He turned around however when he heard a loud thump and a muttered “Fuck” from Laurence side. Apparently while trying to get a new glass the Vicar had knocked down a crate. 

“Sorry.”, Laurence said, intending to put the crate back in place, but froze as he looked into it. He picked up a certain item from the crate and turned to Micolash with a darkened face. As Micolash saw what it was, he froze too.

“...This is the Byrgenwerth seal....”, Laurence spoke. “Micolash, have you been spying on me? This whole time? I thought we were friends!”

He had shouted that last word, gasped, probably at his sudden outburst, clasped a hand over his mouth and Micolash thought he could saw tears prickling at his eyes as Laurence turned around and rushed out of the room before Micolash could even finish saying: “Laurence, wait, that is a misunder...” 

With the intensity the door had been slammed shut, Micolash knew that Laurence wouldn't be able to talk rational to him for now. Maybe he would have calmed down enough the next day so that Micolash could clear up the misunderstanding. 

He sat back down at the table and filled the wine glass that Laurence left back to the brim, drinking half of it at once. 

“What? Don't stare at me like this. You are the one who suddenly vanished.”, Micolash snapped at Rom. He had the feeling her dark eyes stared at him rather reproachful. 

“..I probably should have expected him to react like this.”, Micolash spoke further. “He broke all bonds with Byrgenwerth and especially Master Willem. It's true that I wrote to this place, you know this, because all the letters were directed at you.” 

So, he was sitting alone in his room, talking with the hallucination he had from his girlfriend. Great, he surely was getting mad. 

“Just what happened to you?”, Micolash spoke further. “You seemed to make such a good breakthrough. But the last time I visited you, you were just sitting there, staring into nothing. Not acknowledging me at all. You know, that did hurt a lot.” 

Unleashing all his hurt feelings at the hallucination of his dead girlfriend, he had to become crazy. How else could he explain this behaviour? 

“...I am sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”, he said. “Master Willem told me that you ascended... this sounded like you died. But maybe he meant it literal? But... if that is the case, maybe you are not a hallucination at all? But a part of you still watching over me? I don't know...” 

Micolash refilled the wineglass and took it over to his night stand, flopping down on the bed. 

“I just wish I could hear your voice again...”

Rom stared at him. Her eyes never stopped following him. Did she always had that many? Micolash waited for her reply, but as always, only silence remained. He sighed. 

“It seems like you are just a hallucination after all...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by an anon on tumblr


	9. Prompt: Painful Transformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia gathers her thoughts before a hunter comes in to witness her transformation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always had the feeling that Amelia desperately tried to supress her transformation and so I worked a few of my headcanons about the backstory of the church and Amelia into it. She will forever be one of my favourite bosses with an awesome cutscene and that blood curdling screams.

"Remain wary of the frailty of men. Their wills are weak, minds young.  
Were it not for fear, death would go unlamented."  
Seek the old blood.  
Let us pray, let us wish... to partake in communion.  
Let us partake in communion... and feast upon the old blood.  
Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our fears.  
Seek the old blood.  
But beware the frailty of men. Their wills are weak, minds young.  
The foul beasts will dangle nectar and lure the meek into the depths.  
Remain wary of the frailty of men..." 

Amelia had recited this exact prayer for the last several hours now. It was the night of the hunt and she could hear the sounds of a fight from outside. A hunter was coming... and she knew, once they would set their feet over the treshold of the grand cathedral, she wouldn't be able to suppress her own beastly scourge within her anymore. 

And once this would happen, the hunter would do what a hunter would must, slaughtering their prey. The thought... terrified her. She clutched the vicar's golden pendant and once again recited the prayer again. It was the last thing that tied her to her humanity, the last thing that kept her from turning. 

As she prayed she looked up and her gaze fell onto his skull. 

Laurence... the founder, the first Vicar, how would he have behaved in her situation? She couldn't ask him anymore, she could only pray, pray for his guidance. It had been years since he died... turned, only a skull remaining. 

Amelia had been taken in by him, everything she knew about blood research she knew from him, she had been eager to take in her role as the next Vicar once Laurence would have stepped down, but when he turned into the first cleric beast, she had been still too young, only fourteen, and the golden pendant instead had been given to the next suitable person who could act as the Vicar, one of the higher ranking church ministers.

She knew that the people had searched out for Ludwig to ask him to take the role, he was beloved and strong, but Ludwig had rejected the offer. After Laurence' death, he had been the most distressed. She remembered having sitting next to him when he had gotten treatment for several cruel burn wounds with the old blood in the infirmary, as the Holy Blade woke up and had to realize that he had just slain his lover with his very own hands. The very same person that had acted as a parental figure for Amelia, a mere orphan. They both had let their tears flow freely this day. 

A few weeks later, Ludwig had disappeared. They had found a horrible beast however that had the Holy Moonlight Sword stabbed through its chest. While some of the church hunters had suspected, that Ludwig, whose mind seemed to be broken since Laurence died, had abandoned them and his sword, Amelia was certain that this beast had been Ludwig. 

The way the signature sword of him was pierced through the beast, the gentle eyes she was able to see in that amalgamation of a face... she was certain Ludwig had kept enough of his humanity to end his life before he could become a threat to others. 

...And now she was on the verge of becoming a threat for others. At least Amelia had made sure to evacuate the church as good as possible. Some of the church doctors hadn't listened to her and continued to roam cathedral ward, to join in the hunt. And she knew that one of the executioners had joined in it too, probably having an ulterior motive. 

Once again Amelia repeated her prayer, the prayer that Laurence had taught her, the prayer that had been spoken every morning and every evening in the church. She could feel her own transformation lingering in her chest, it almost made it hard for her to speak. She clutched the golden pendant harder. 

She had become the Vicar of the Healing Church once she had reached the age of thirty. She never knew why they had waited so long for her to actually vote her into the position she had trained for since she had been a child. Since then, sixteen years had passed since Laurence had died. She had been given the gold pendant, the informations about the blood research and she had been left to rule over a town that was so dependent on the old blood, that she didn't had another chance but to continue their practices. 

What she also had been given was Laurence' dying message. That they never had showed it to her before had made her chest burn with anger. Written on a singed piece of paper, in shaky big letters, stood only one sentence.

“Fear the old blood.” 

Amelia had tried to find out what Laurence had wanted to say. But all the people who had once been close to him had already died or vanished. 

Lady Maria had taken her own life at the astral clocktower. 

Gehrman had one day vanished without a trace and when she had asked for him, Laurence had given her a blank stare and vanished into his office for the rest of the day and she knew that she couldn't ask about his whereabouts ever again.

Micolash, who once had been the closest friend of Laurence had one day packed his things and left. 

And Laurence and Ludwig both had turned and died, leaving her with a riddle. She didn't gave up though and searched for more people who could know what it meant and by slogging through Laurence' old diaries and letters, she had found the names of two of his other friends, Rom and Caryll. 

However, she was never able to locate Rom, mainly because it had been described that she had stayed at Byrgenwerth. That had been Laurence' old school and he had declared it as forbidden ground a long time ago. Amelia wanted to respect his wishes to break ties with his old school and never tried to seek it out. 

Caryll, on the other hand, could be tracked down, they had became a rune smith, but they had been clear about that they didn't want have anything to do with the Healing Church and that she should leave them alone and so this research had been fruitless too. 

While she had read Laurence' diaries though, she had found the phrase on the paper multiple times, apparently having been spoken by Laurence' old teacher and the first Vicar had made sure to mock him all the way over it, describing that the old blood was their future and nothing to be feared about and that it would led humanity into a new age. 

And Amelia had latched onto this. The old blood was something good, it did help people. It surely would help them reach a new age, she couldn't even fathom why Laurence last words had about fearing it. Especially because the diaries also stated that all his research had led him to be certain about that it was completely safe. 

And over the years, his words had been forgotten. By her, by the church. She continued the practices she had been told as the Vicar of the Healing Church, unaware that the true power laid with the church ministers. 

And now she was kneeling in front of the skull of the man who started it all, reciting a prayer that cherished the old blood, as these thoughts crept into her mind. 

...Maybe it had all been the bloods fault and Laurence had realized it and wanted to give them a warning? A warning that they all had ignored and forgotten?

She didn't had time anymore to mull further about this thoughts. The sounds of fighting from outside had ceased and she could hear steps ascending the stairs to the grand cathedral. 

As soon as they crossed the threshold, she stopped reciting her prayer, instead looking at the pendant one last time, bringing it up to her chest as a rift shook through her whole body. 

It was unspeakable, indescribable pain as her bones shifted, as she felt how she grew far larger than before, she couldn't help but scream in pain and terror, blood coming out from within her, staining the altar she had prayed upon before. 

She felt how her feet changed, new claws ripping right through her shoes, she felt the pain of antlers snaking their way out of her skull, the pain as her mouth grew into a snout, every single teeth being replaced by a row of deadly sharp new ones, every single of them coming out could be felt by her and while this all happened in several seconds, it felt like an eternity for her, as her bones creaked and shifted and forced her to bend forwards, forced her to put a hand on the ground for support, a hand lined with claws. 

...She closed her other hand around the pendant. She could feel her humanity fading, but she would hold on. Hold on to the last shred of humanity she had. But for know, she knew that she wouldn't survive long with a hunter having seen her transformation right in front of their eyes. 

She turned to face the hunter, a hunter who had already drawn their weapon. A hunter that would only see her as the next prey and put her out of her assumed misery. 

Amelia prepared herself for a fight.


	10. Prompt: Addiction/Withdrawal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being put on sedatives Laurence realizes that he probably started to get too used to them when they run out before he can get a fresh bottle.
> 
> Characters in this chapter: Laurence the first Vicar/Ludwig the Holy Blade, Female Original Characters (Laurence' secretary Florence and Laurence' doctor Isabella)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a sequel to my fic Frenzy, which you can find [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19858519/chapters/47027878)
> 
> If you don't want to read it, it is basically about Laurence getting a Frenzy from Odeon Chapel Amydgala and falling into a catatonic state because of it until he gets healed with the use of the freshly discovered sedatives.

“Take two drops every morning, noon and evening like we talked about. It should last for a month and then come back for another bottle.”

Dr. Isabella's words still echoed into Laurence' ears as he looked at the bottle with sedatives. He had neglected his doctor's instruction and started to take two more drips of the sedatives every day before bed. 

Now it was still one week until his appointment and the bottle was almost empty. 

“Fuck, I didn't think this through.”, Laurence cursed. The bottle would only last for a single day more and even then only when he would take the subscribed six drops a day. Maybe he could try and get some more sedatives before the appointment? Sending out Florence was worth a try. 

Laurence took the sedatives bottles and dipped two drops into some water, his hand shaking. Once he had downed the medicine, it didn't take long for the shaking to stop. 

But that meant, that only four drops would remain. Laurence got up from his desk to find Florence. 

At around lunch time Laurence' shaky hands had come back. He knew it was time for the next dose of sedatives, but he wanted to wait and see if Florence managed to come back with a new bottle or not. If not, then he would need to try and take the last four drops spread out over the week until his appointment. 

“Laurence, haven't you taken your medicine?”, Ludwig asked. “You are shaking like a deer.” 

Laurence winced, startled by his boyfriend's words, the person he had hurt most by getting frenzied. He didn't want to admit to him that he had taken more of the sedatives than prescribed, Ludwig already scolded him for having an addiction problem anyway with the way he used the old blood. 

“Ah, no, that's not it.”, Laurence lied. “I am... just a bit cold.” 

Winter was close and the temperatures had sunken at a rapid rate, so this wasn't even a full lie. Laurence saw how Ludwig stood up and felt how he embraced it from behind. 

“Maybe you should get out the warm coat.”, he said. Laurence' shaking stopped, but he knew it wasn't because of Ludwig's warmth. 

He knew it was because Ludwig calmed him down. 

“You know, I am just worried about you, you only have been out of the wheelchair for a week.”, Ludwig said. “Please tell me when it gets too much for you.” 

Laurence nodded, already feeling bad for lying to Ludwig. 

At the afternoon Florence returned and her news weren't good ones. “I am sorry, Vicar, but they say that they only can give the medicine to the patient directly. And she said you still had enough until your appointment in a week. I also went to a few pharmacies, but this clinic is the only one who gives out the sedatives.” 

“I see. Thanks for your effort, Florence.”, Laurence said. 

“If I may ask, why did you try to get a new bottle already? Shouldn't you still have enough?”, she said. Laurence cringed. His secretary could see through him like an open book. 

“There may have been an instance once or twice where I took a bit more medicine than prescribed...”, Laurence admitted. As he saw Florence' narrowed gaze on him, he quickly added: “Please don't tell Ludwig! I, uh, figure something out.” 

“Prescriptions are done for a reason, you know.”, Florence said before leaving his office. Laurence laid his head on the desk, this day had been exhausting so far. He felt like he only wanted to go into bed and sleep. In fact, it felt like a very compelling thing to do. 

When Florence knocked on his office door the next time and asked if he would like to attend today's church meeting, he raised his head. 

“Huh, I thought this was only in an hour...”, he said. 

“...Your grace, it's already 2 PM.”, Florence said, confusion in her voices. Laurence stared at the clock in his office and it confirmed the time. 

What had happened? He thought he had laid down on the desk only for a few minutes and suddenly he had lost an hour. It didn't even felt like he was asleep. This definitely wasn't good. 

“Oh, um, sorry, Florence, I think I fell asleep.”, he said and straightened his hair, well, as good as he could, they tended to end up in their natural curly state anyway. 

As Laurence got up, his gaze fell onto the drawer with the sedatives in it. He violently detached his gaze from them. He couldn't take them. He needed a bit of them for the next day. 

“Are you feeling alright? Should I tell the others that you won't coming?”, Florence asked. She had been present a large time during his healing process and was aware that he still wasn't back to a hundred percent. 

“No, it's fine.”, Laurence said. “I am ready now.” He slipped from his chair and hurried to the conference room, where he had to brace himself for two rather boring hours.

 

“...rence? Laurence?!” Laurence came back into reality when Ludwig shook him. 

“Huh, what is it?”, he asked. 

“We... need your approval for this next point...”, Ludwig said and Laurence was aware that each and every church minister was staring at him. Weird, hadn't the meeting just started? Normally they needed an hour to get to the points that would need his approval. 

“Have you fallen asleep...?”, Ludwig whispered. 

“...I am not sure...”, Laurence whispered back, before saying: “My apologies, could you repeat that? It appears that I am a bit tired today.” 

Laurence could see how the highest ranked church minister deeply sighed and repeated the question. Somehow he seemed to manage to make it through the rest of the meeting, though his shaking came back. Once he was done, Ludwig was escorting him back to his office. 

“Laurence, what did you mean with, you are not sure? I know you think this meetings are boring, but normally you at least listen in.”, Ludwig said. “I am worried about you. First the shaking, now this...” 

“Hm, I think I am just having a bad day. I will go to bed early today.”, Laurence answered. His thoughts drifted to the sedatives in his office. The urge to just take the bottle and down the rest all at once was strong, but he knew he wouldn't get any more until his appointment. 

The next dosage he would only be able to take tomorrow and even then he could only go with one drop. That meant, he could only use it on four days and had to skip three days. 

Laurence wasn't so sure if he would make it. The shaking already had come back and it felt like it would only get worse.

“That sounds good.”, Ludwig smiled. “I am fine with going to bed early too, so you won't be alone.”

“Very appreciated.”, Laurence answered. Since his Frenzy sleeping alone had felt like pure torture for him, nightmares about the incident could come even when he took the medicine. 

Ludwig delivered Laurence at his office and went to take care of his church hunters. Laurence decided to take the afternoon easy. He didn't had any appointments today. He hadn't read through the newspaper yet and decided to sit down on his desk to catch up on it. 

Shortly after he sat down, he felt a weight on his lap and looked down to see Gary, the big gray cat with one missing leg. He started to stroke him which brought the cat to purr. It felt very soothing and soon Laurence wasn't reading the newspaper anymore but completely fixated on petting the cat. 

When Ludwig knocked at his door and asked if he wanted some dinner, Laurence blinked surprised. Hadn't Gary jumped on his lap like five minutes ago? 

These blackouts were becoming worrisome... 

As Laurence put Gary down, he felt how warm and heavy his legs felt. It was apparent that this cat had sat on them for quite some time. He wondered if he should tell Ludwig about it... but decided against it.

Then he also had to confess to him that he had upped his dosage of the sedatives without feedback of Dr. Isabella and he wasn't ready for that scolding. Not when he still was recovering from a a near fatal brain injury. 

In fact, it was a good thing that the first instinct of the infirmary had been to hook him up on the old blood. While it couldn't cure the Frenzy, it had managed to cure all external damage that had been done to his brain. Apparently, getting into a Frenzy did hurt like hell and he was lucky that he had entered a catatonic state and couldn't remember it. Well, most of it, Laurence very much remembered that his head had felt like splitting in two when he got grabbed.

Laurence opened the door to join Ludwig. As they walked to the mess hall, he clung pretty hard to Ludwig's arm. Once they arrived Ludwig spoke up: “Laurence, you know that hurts...” 

“What? Sorry!”, Laurence let go of Ludwig's arm and the Holy Blade massaged it briefly. 

“You have a bad day, don't you...?”, Ludwig asked. Laurence just nodded. While the sedatives helped it wasn't like he had only good days since he had been released from the clinic. It was also easier than to tell Ludwig that his medicine was almost out. 

“Let's eat and then let's go into bed. We can read a bit before we sleep.”, Ludwig suggested. Of course that meant that Laurence would read aloud to Ludwig while commenting on his favourite or unfavourite parts of the book. Ludwig was a painfully slow reader for Laurence and needed the same time for one page in which Laurence would manage to read four. Luckily he didn't mind that Laurence would read to him, he actually appreciated the sentiment. 

Now that Laurence thought about it, that Ludwig had tried to get a reaction out of him by reading poetry, one of his weak points, was all the more sweet. 

“Mhm, let's do this.”, Laurence said and took Ludwig's arm again, this time not as hard. 

After dinner Ludwig ushered Laurence right to his room. As Laurence still was busy changing from his church set into some cozy pajamas, Ludwig came with Mick in his arms. The first cat Laurence had ever brought to the church. 

“Maybe he calms you down.”, Ludwig said and put Mick on the bed where he patiently waited for Laurence to join. Once Laurence had crawled into the bed, Mick came onto his lap and started purring. 

“I still remember when he was so small...”, Laurence said as he pet the black cat. In the meantime, Ludwig had changed and joined Laurence in the bed, passing him the book they were reading. 

“I still think he's small.”, Ludwig said, gaze on Mick. “The other cats in here are larger.” 

“Well, true.”, Laurence smiled. Mick never had grown big. He was a tiny cat. Laurence could feel the warmth of the animal on his body and started to relax. He settled into Ludwig's embrace and started reading. 

Being in bed like this, with his loved one, a beloved pet and one of his favourite activities he felt safe and secure. He even didn't think about the sedatives before falling asleep. 

A few hours later Laurence awoke in a cold sweat. His chest had tightened and he could barely breath. He noticed that he clung very hard to Ludwig's arm and his whole body was shivering. 

He had dreamed of _that_ night. That hadn't happened in weeks now. In fact, the nights with Ludwig had always been dreamless once he started to take the sedatives. 

Ludwig shifted a few minutes later and sleepily opened his eyes. He was wide awake once he saw Laurence' state and embraced him. 

“Laurence, it's fine... it was just a nightmare.”, he said reassuringly. “Nothing bad can happen to you. I am with you. Nobody can hurt you here. We are in your room and in your bed. Your cat is with you.” 

Laurence gaze slowly wandered down the blankets and stopped once he saw Mick. The cat must have had the same rude awakening as him and was sitting at the end of the bed, staring at Laurence with his big yellow eyes. 

The sight of Mick and the embrace of Ludwig slowly brought Laurence back into reality and he stopped to shiver, curling himself in Ludwig's embrace. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”, Ludwig said. 

Laurence shook his head. He already had talked a lot about this day, he didn't need to bring this horrible memory back up. 

“Do you want me to hold you until you fell asleep again?” 

Laurence nodded. That would be nice. Ludwig was the one person he had memories from during his time locked into a catatonic state. 

As Laurence was waiting for his body to calm down enough for him to be able to go back to sleep, he felt how Ludwig rubbed circles in his back. It was a nice feeling. He felt warm, secure and embraced. Before he doze off, he could also feel how Mick came back to cuddle with him. 

Laurence awoke several hours later from a second dream. It wasn't the dream of _that_ day this time, but the one that took place in the Hunter's Workshop.

He didn't had this dream for quite some time now... In fact, it felt like it had stopped completely once he had started the sedatives. 

Why was it coming back now? 

Laurence freed himself from the blankets and stood up, deciding to let Ludwig sleep a bit more. Now that he was awake he could get dressed and visit the bathroom. 

As Laurence still was gathering clean clothes for the day, his mind wandered around the dream. The Hunter's Workshop had been Gehrman's domain. It was abandoned nowadays, everyone used the workshop of the Healing Church. 

Laurence didn't know why his mind kept being focused on this dream, but it continued to wander and soon he shivered again, as his mind recalled a few rather... unpleasant memories. 

Mainly the one where Gehrman had confronted him with the suicide of Maria and how much his friend had blamed Laurence for it before withdrawing from the public and then... vanishing. 

All the time the uneasy feeling in Laurence' stomach had risen and now concluded in what felt like a full blown panic attack. The reasonable part of Laurence knew that he should wake Ludwig and let himself calm down with his help, but the unreasonable part, the part that didn't want to tell Ludwig all what had happened, made him run to his office where Laurence took the remaining sedatives at once, not even diluted in a glass of water. 

In an instance, the effect hit and Laurence managed to breath normally again. He sat himself down on the couch and started to pet the cat that was sleeping there. Laura, the red and white one, most of the church called her just the Vicar, because apparently people reminded her of him. 

As he was sitting there, the sedatives taking their effect, it dawned on Laurence what he just had done. 

He had swallowed all the remaining sedatives at once. Meant, that he didn't had anymore until his appointment. 

He hadn't even made a day without taking them. How should he make it until next week? 

It wasn't like Laurence had a choice. He had to try at least. He better told Florence to not let any people make appointments with him, he needed a calm week. 

He should try and be around Ludwig as much as possible, his boyfriend's presence always calmed Laurence down. 

The plan worked out fine until later this day when Ludwig had to leave for an impromptu hunt and Laurence couldn't follow him, his place was at the Healing Church after all. 

With every appointment cancelled there wasn't much to do for Laurence. He didn't felt like doing research, not with his hands shaking so much, so Laurence just withdrew into his office with a glass of wine and a book, intending to read until Ludwig was back. Mick had joined him again and was purring on his lap as Laurence sat down on his usual place near the window. 

Laurence let his gaze roam out of the window to look upon Yharnam. He froze when he saw a movement. A movement of what looked like a pair of too many arms. 

He blinked and the sight was gone. He really hoped this time it was just an hallucination. He didn't want too see even more of these things sitting on buildings like overgrown house spiders. 

Laurence opened the book and started reading, occasionally sipping on his wine and sometimes giving Mick a pet, but the letters started to grew hazy and his gaze kept wandering back to the window... 

 

“...rence? Laurence! Wake up!” 

Laurence felt himself shook and when his gaze focused he saw Ludwig in front of him. All he did was asking: “Huh?”, Laurence didn't remember anything since he had started reading the book. 

“Oh, by the great ones, I thought you wouldn't wake up...”, Ludwig embraced Laurence and Laurence could see some tears in his eyes. As he still tried to process what happened he noticed that the book he had been reading had fallen to the floor and the wine glass had been knocked over, with the red liquid seeping into the carpet. 

“Why.. what happened?”, Laurence asked and Ludwig pulled back from him, hands still on his shoulders, giving him a stern look. 

“Laurence, when I came back, you wouldn't answer the door when I knocked and when I came in you were just sitting there, staring at nothing, like... back then.”, Ludwig told him. 

Laurence' heart skipped a bit at hearing this. He had fallen back in his old symptoms. 

“You gave me such a scare...”, Ludwig said and embraced Laurence once more. “Aren't you taking the medicine? Shouldn't it be better with it...?” 

It should be, but Laurence hadn't any sedatives anymore. He had taken them all, more as he needed. And now he was paying the toll. 

He smiled at Ludwig and said: “I am fine, I just spaced out.”, but Laurence could see in Ludwig's eyes that he wasn't convinced. 

“Do you want to spend the rest of the day with me? I wanted to take care of some training now. You can watch us.”, Ludwig suggested, clearly wanting to keep a close watch over Laurence. 

Laurence would have liked to do this, very much, but he shook his head: “I am sorry, Ludwig, I can't. I... have to get something first. I promise we'll see each other at dinner.”

“What is it? Can't I come with you?”, Ludwig said. 

“I am sorry, but I have to be alone for this... It isn't far away and I should be back in two hours.”, Laurence said. 

Laurence knew that Ludwig wasn't content with his desire to go wandering off alone, but he also knew that he simply could order Ludwig to leave him alone. He didn't want for it to come to it and luckily Ludwig withdrew. 

“At least say me where you go so that I can come search for you should something happen...”, Ludwig said. 

“I will be in Central Yharnam.”, Laurence answered truthfully, just not where exactly he was going. “I … just need to get out for a bit, that's all.” 

That wasn't even an unreasonable lie. Laurence often had to take a step out from his duties as the Vicar and would wander Central Yharnam. Mostly it ended in some pub where he got wasted. 

“Don't tell me that the thing you want to get is a drink in a pub.”, Ludwig rolled his eyes. “Well, when you come back for dinner, I won't say anything. Just don't get drunk, alright?”, Ludwig said as Laurence already was headed to the door. 

“...I promise.”, Laurence said before he passed the door and quickened his pace once Ludwig was out of sigh and earshot, not easing down his steps until he had arrived at his destination. 

The clinic that specialized on Frenzy in Central Yharnam, located in an back alley, run by two siblings, which had graduated from Byrgenwerth. 

As he entered, Laurence got a surprised look from the secretary: “Your appointment is only next week.” 

“I know, but I need to talk to Dr. Isabella for a minute.”, Laurence said. He could see how the secretary flipped through a few files and then said: “I could squeeze you in in around an hour, if you are willing to wait.” 

Laurence was very willing to wait and sat down, staring at the wall until the secretary gave him a hint to come into Dr. Isabella's office. Once he had entered the office and sat down, Dr. Isabella turned to him and said: “Vicar Laurence, your appointment is set six days from now. Did something happen because you are already here?” 

“Sedatives, I need more sedatives.” Laurence sputtered out. 

He could see a frown on the doctor's face: “I know that I gave you enough sedatives to last the whole time until our next appointment. Unless...”, she narrowed her eyes and Laurence suddenly felt very very small. “...unless, you have upped the dosage on your own.” 

“...I started to take one drop more per day for a while now...”, Laurence had to admit. “I didn't want to!”, he was quick to defend himself before Dr. Isabella could say something. “...I just was so anxious all the time and it helped me calm down... And made the nightmares go away... Mostly.”

“Why haven't you come here to talk with me about needing a higher dosage?”, Dr. Isabella asked. She seemed so calm. Laurence had expected for her to be mad. And she had a point. Why hadn't he talked with his doctor about it. 

“I don't know.”, Laurence answered. People never had asked him how much of the old blood they could take. Maybe because of this it hadn't occurred to him that maybe taking more of an unknown medicine that intended without your doctor's advice would be a bad move? He noticed that he had started to shiver again and stared down at his hands.

“It is common for people with a Frenzy that they need time to recover.”, Dr. Isabella said. “And yours was quite bad. After all, you told me that you can see the creature that caused this condition. Most of our patients can't see them.” 

“I know this...”, Laurence said. It was apparent that he was one of the few that could see the Amygdala. Ludwig wasn't able to see it. So was Florence. And the Church Hunters just walked in and out of Odeon Chapel as if there wasn't a giant eldritch being sitting on it. 

“You clearly haven't recovered from your Frenzy yet.”, Dr. Isabella said. “I think it would be better for you to go back into inpatient treatment. Here you can recover from any stress you had and we can find out which kind of dosage suits you.” 

Laurence froze when he heard that. He knew that Dr. Isabella hadn't liked it when he had expressed that he wanted to leave inpatient treatment while still being wheelchair bound and barely able to move without help. And he knew that she only meant it well.

But he couldn't be out of commission a second time. They had gotten awfully close to replace him in the church. And he knew, he couldn't go away for several more weeks. They surely would find a way to replace him then. Lately the Healing Church didn't seem to like the way he was running the place. He probably needed to replace a few church ministers soon. 

“Shall I sign you in for tomorrow?”, Dr. Isabella asked, a form already in her hands, snapping Laurence out of his thoughts. 

No, he couldn't stay in the clinic. He hated himself for doing this, but he saw no other choice. 

“Dr. Isabella, from my knowledge, any new treatment and any new medicine must be approved by the Healing Church.”, he said, voice dropping into a sinister tone. 

“That is correct.”, Dr. Isabella said, seemingly unfazed. “If you want to see our permission, I have the document with your signature on it. I assure you, it is all legal.” 

Laurence actually didn't remember that he had signed it. He often was giving so many documents to sign, he just scribbled his name on it, trusting the ones who gave them the documents that they had been approved. They usually told him if he should take a second look. 

“Oh no, I don't need to see it...”, Laurence said. “I just wanted to give you a hint that I can easily withdraw this permission.” 

Now it was Dr. Isabella's turn to freeze: “But.. why would you do that? Our clinic very much shows great improvement with the treatment of Frenzy incidents. Even you yourself profited from it, Vicar.”

“It would be easy for the Healing Church to take over. Take you under contract. The recipe of the sedatives would be given to the choir and I am sure they would even improve the mixture.”, Laurence casually said. “Of course you wouldn't have to give up your patients, but you would have to relocate into Cathedral Ward and your clinic would be remodeled into one suitable for the Healing Church.” 

“But that would mean that we lose our independence.”, Dr. Isabella whispered. “You would have full control over us... and the medicine we make.” 

“I assume you don't want this to happen then?”, Laurence said, his eyes piercing through Dr. Isabella. 

“..What do you want?”, Dr. Isabella said, finally giving in. 

“The sedatives.”, Laurence hissed. “As much as I want. Give them to me without trouble and I leave you in peace.” 

“...”, Dr. Isabella's silence could even be heard through the air. Then, she slowly opened a drawer and gave Laurence a fresh bottle of sedatives. 

“See, that wasn't so hard.”, Laurence grinned, taking the bottle of sedatives. “I assume that there won't be any trouble the next time I request them.”

Dr. Isabella nodded, calmly, but Laurence could see the pure rage in her eyes. 

“We see each other next week then.”, Laurence piped and left the clinic, Dr. Isabella's icy stare still at his back. 

Once he had rounded the corner and was out of side of anyone, he opened up the bottle and swallowed a few drops in an instant. His beating hard calmed down, his mind numbed down and Laurence started to feel safe and secure again. 

A few blocks later a wave of guilt and shame washed over him. He had totally abused his power to threaten a complete innocent doctor just because he didn't had himself under control. Had it been really worth it?

Staring at the much needed sedatives in his hands, Laurence decided, that it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was nice to show the more assholey side of Laurence when it comes to things that he wants and very much is abusing his power for it. You can bet that Dr. Isabella was going on a rant about him to her brother after he left the clinic.


	11. Prompt: Trapped in a burning Building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a completely normal day for Amelia until she heard the scream and saw the flames... something was clearly wrong in the Healing Church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much my headcanon about Laurence' turning and death from the POV of Amelia. Enjoy!
> 
> I am not going to sugarcoat this, inspiration for this prompts has been rather low, so I will only write works for it when inspiration strikes. However, the prompts “Ambush” or “Selfharm” would earn me a bingo, so if you have ideas for them, feel free to shoot at them me.

Lately Laurence didn't had much time for her and because she was still too young to act as a full time blood saint, Amelia spend quite a large portion of her free time at the orphanage, playing with the younger children. 

This day, she had brought an easy to understand board game and once she had explained the rules, the children had caught on it quickly and greatly enjoyed the game. After the first few rounds they were ready to play on their own, so that Amelia could make room for another child and decided to watch them play, only chiming in when they asked her questions or she saw someone breaking the rules, though, it mostly were just honest mistakes. 

It felt like the most average and normal day a fourteen year old girl could have and she leaned against the wall, getting drowsy as she watched the children play. 

In the back of her mind, she worried about Laurence. He had been off the last few weeks. He barely had let anyone near him, not even Ludwig, and whenever she saw him he looked sick. Ludwig told her that he coughed a lot and though he tried to hide it, he apparently was barely able to keep any food down and vomited almost everything out he ate. 

That Laurence, the Vicar of the Healing Church, the discoverer of the Holy Blood, was sick, was concerning her. She knew perfectly how well the Healing Blood worked, she had seen it at work countless times, the first time at herself, when Laurence had helped her getting rid of a condition named anemia. Apparently Laurence had suffered from the same condition as a child and he had often told her how glad he was that she didn't have to grow up with this condition, like he did. 

When Amelia thought back to her teachings, there was only one sickness that the Holy Blood couldn't cure and that was the Beastly Scourge. She gasped at the thought. Could it be...? No, he was the Vicar of the Healing Church. He surely wouldn't be able to get such a lowly sickness mostly observed at the lower classes. 

She snapped out of her thoughts as she heard the children around the board games get into a little fight. As she wanted to ask what was going on, she heard a scream that made her blood curdle. 

The children heard it too. 

“What was that?” 

“Are we having the hunt..?”

“Sister Amelia, I am scared..”

“We shouldn't have a hunt... it's too early...”, Amelia murmured, pressing the girl that had expressed her fear, Evangeline, against her. 

She didn't want to panic the little ones, but... this scream had been so close. Too close. It sounded like it had come from within, not from outside. Did that mean... had someone in the church turned? Her thoughts raced to Laurence. 

She stood up and said: “Children, stay here. Don't go out. I will find a member of the choir to watch over you.”

“Sister Amelia, are you going to leave us?”, Evangeline asked, looking at her with big eyes. 

“I will promise you that I come back.”, she smiled and straightened her long hair, snatched up her skirt and rushed out of the room. 

Her first stop was the break room of the choir. Luckily, she found a few members gathered there. They were locked in a heated discussion and stopped once they saw Amelia enter. 

“What are you doing here, St. Amelia?”, one of them asked, from the voice it was Yuria, their leader. “I thought you wanted to spend your time in the orphanage?” 

“Something happened in the church.”, Amelia said. “And I need to check up on Vicar Laurence. He... he has looked terrible lately. I need to see if he is alright. I wanted to ask one of you to watch over the little ones.” 

The three choir members looked to each other and then at her. “...It could be better if you stayed here.”, a male voice said, June, she thought. 

“What, why?”, Amelia demanded to know. “I don't know if you are aware, but Vicar Laurence adopted me and therefore is my legitimate father. I need to know if he is alright.”

“Amelia, we only mean well...”, Yuria took up the word. “This morning Vicar Laurence was acting really strange. At the morning prayer he suddenly threw up and everyone who was close enough to witness it said that he had vomited up blood. After this, he had barricaded himself in his office and was sending everyone away, even Florence and Ludwig.” She sighed deeply before finishing: “He is suspected to have the beastly scourge and hidden it from everyone, which is against the rules he himself had laid down. And... judging from the sound we heard not too long ago....” She shook her head. 

Amelia's hands were in front of her mouth, gasping. She couldn't believe what she heard. She didn't want to believe what she had heard. 

They did imply that Laurence had turned and had been put down. The last fact however was made untrue by the fact that she heard the blood curdling scream again. 

She turned around and ran, feeling how one of the choir members grabbed for her but she shook their hand off and ran, into the main building. 

“Not Laurence, please don't let it be Laurence.”, she thought. As she scurried through the door that led to the main cathedral, she was hit by a wave of thick smoke and had to stop, a cough rose from her throat and she fell onto her knees, being sure that must have been the feeling when you coughed out your lungs.

That was also when she realized how hot it was. Far too hot. She grabbed for her headscarf and used it to cover her mouth and nose. 

This room was on fire. 

Amelia pulled herself together and stood up, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the blazing heat of the flames. After she forced her eyes back open, what she saw was much worse than she could imagine. 

The room was absolutely trashed and flames fed on the remaining furniture and ornaments. She could see several church hunters down there, some of them didn't move anymore... and one half of the rest seemed to be busy to try and heal up the injured ones with blood vials and the other half was running around like headless chicken trying to get rid of the flames. 

Amelia didn't think twice and jumped over the gallery, sliding down a still intact beam and once she was near the Hunters, she shouted: “Take my blood, I am a blood saint.” 

“St. Amelia, thank the blood that you are here to help out, but... it is dangerous here!”, one of the Hunters said as Amelia prepared a needle to let her special blood get drawn. 

“You can tell me what happened while you draw my blood.”, she said. “I am your next Vicar after all. I should know what happened here and I also should help out my subjects!” 

It annoyed Amelia when she was treated like a child. Sure, she was still young, but she did had to live most of her life on her own, growing up in an orphanage, and even when Laurence had adopted her and she greatly enjoyed spending time with him and later, Ludwig too, it couldn't be called happy family life. She knew she had been chosen to be a successor to his work. 

Amelia winced as she put the needle into her hand and let her blood collect by a large blood vial. 

“I am sorry to tell you this, but...”, the Hunter said, “It's Vicar Laurence. He... has been infected. And when we went to confront him about it, he... turned. In the largest beast I have ever seen. That was also on flames... Ludwig is... taking care of him right now.” 

Amelia put her hand in front of her mouth in shock. “No, not Laurence...”, she said. “You... you are sure it is him? It can't be someone else?” 

“I haven't seen him turn but several others have and there is no reason why they should lie. They are lucky they are still alive.”, the Hunter grew quiet as he pulled the needle from Amelia and went on to use her blood to tend to the wounded. 

Amelia's wound closed on her own, the benefit of being a Blood Saint, little wounds healed practically on their own. But the words of the Hunter were still deep in her mind. Laurence turned... and Ludwig was the the one facing him. She... she had to get to them. 

She wouldn't believe that it was Laurence until she saw it with her own eyes. 

And so Amelia got up and ran. Out of the main hall and into the deeper parts of the church. It was so hot and there was so much smoke. She had to cover her mouth and nose again as she ran away from the chaotic screaming in the main cathedral and into the part of the church that burned even heavier. 

If Laurence... the beast... was on flames, she probably would find it by following the flames. 

Amelia barely knew how much time had passed since she had started to hurry through the corridors, but she started to hear the sounds of a fight. Screeching, something shattered, the swing of a sword. She probably was close.

As she arrived, she froze as she saw the largest beast she had ever witnessed, big antlers, long snout, a row of razor sharp teeth and a gigantic left hand with claws that looked as large as her own forearm. And she gasped, again, when she saw something glistening in the flames that the beast engulfed. 

The gold pendant that only the Vicar was allowed to wear. 

Before Amelia could process what she saw in front of her, she saw Ludwig facing the beast, his sword of the holy moon light in both hands, murmuring: “Forgive me, Laurence.” and the next thing she saw was blood (lava?) splattering, another ear piercing scream that made both of her hands flew up to her ears and then an earth shattering thud as the beast, Laurence, fell. 

At the same time, behind her crashed a beam and she stumbled into the room, having to realize that the escape route was blocked. 

“Ludwig!”, she cried, running over to the Holy Blade. “Ludwig, we have to get out of here.” She was pulling on his arm but the Hunter didn't make a move or seemed to even notice her. 

He was hugging the lifeless head of the beast and thick tears streamed down his face. 

The whole room was burning, the carpet got engulfed into flames, the curtains were burning to ashes and there was smoke, everywhere. Amelia started to cough as it reached her lungs and she noticed the same was true for Ludwig, who occasionally coughed too between his hiccups of crying. 

Amelia looked around. There must have been another way. Surely there was another way out of there. She.. she knew that Laurence wouldn't have wanted for Ludwig to die here. He hadn't been himself. He had turned into something different. She knew that Lauence had been lost the moment he had transformed into a hideous beast. 

It may have been the lack of oxygen but Amelia suddenly broke out in hysteric laughter when she realized that Laurence had become the very thing that he had loathed and fight for too long and she couldn't miss the irony of this. 

No, she had to pull herself together. She and Ludwig were trapped in a room that was starting to burn down the ground. Amelia tried to find a way, another way out of the room , but... 

...every other route she could have taken was littered with flames. She tried to find a path between them but had to step back once hot sparks hit her. The Holy Blood in herself made the minor burns heal after a short while, but it still hurt. 

From her observations the only way they had a chance to get back was the one where she had come from, but there was a beam blocking the way and she surely wasn't strong enough to move it. 

Ludwig would be. His Holy Moonlight Sword could cut anything. But... 

She glanced at him. He was still hugging the beast's... Laurence'... head and she saw how his arms and face had turned red with burns. 

But... she had to at least try. She ran over to him and cried, as good as she could because of the smoke: “Ludwig, snap out of it! This place is burning down. We have to get out of here! It's... it's over. He's GONE!” 

The impact of her own words hit her hard. He was gone. Laurence was gone. He was dead and would never embrace her or talk to her or teach her anything again. 

She fell on her knees as tears started to glistening in her eyes and then quickly streamed down her face. Laurence was dead, Ludwig was broken and she had run right into the danger she had been warned about and nobody of them would make it out alive. And even if, the church would be done for. When the masses would know about the tale that the Vicar had turned... 

It felt hopeless, all felt so hopeless. Amelia crept closer to Ludwig and leaned against him, not minding the hotness anymore. If it had to end like this, at least she didn't want to be alone. 

Just as she closed her eyes and accepted her fate, she heard frantic voices and the splashing of water as long as the sound of something large and heavy getting lifted out of the way. 

“There they are!”, the voice cried out and Amelia could feel how someone scooped her up. As she opened her eyes, she recognized the same church hunter that had taken her blood earlier to heal the injured. “St. Amelia, are you alright? We will get you out of here and to the infirmary right away.”

“What about Ludwig?”, she said, suppressing a coughing fit. 

As she turned around to look at him she saw that several hunters tried to get the large man to move. 

“We are trying our best...”, the Hunter said and gently turned her around, making clear that he didn't want her to see this scene. 

A few hours later Amelia had been treated with a blood ministration. Because of her nature as a blood saint it worked especially well with her and besides a few singed streaks of hair that would grow quick enough again, she was fine. What the blood couldn't heal however was the emotional turmoil she felt. 

She sat at Ludwig's bed side. The big Hunter managed to get himself numerous bad burns, but not from fighting the flaming beast that Laurence had become but because he had refused to let go of him and it had taken five hunters to drag him from hugging the corpse and to the infirmary. 

He was at his third blood ministration and still hadn't healed up. Or woken up. And Amelia waited. 

She waited for a long time. She didn't knew for how long, but eventually Ludwig opened his eyes. As he noticed her he stared at her blankly. 

“It wasn't a dream?”, he asked. 

Amelia nodded as new tears glistened in her eyes. 

“So I really killed him...”, Ludwig stated. 

Amelia nodded again as she choked out: “You had no other choice...”

Ludwig pulled himself up and she could see the tears in his own eyes. “I know...”, he said. “My mind knows that I did the right thing but my heart...”

He pulled her in an embrace. “It just hurts so much.” 

Amelia led her tears flow freely as she felt Ludwig's own drip on her head. 

They made it out alive, but both of them had lost something truly valuable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few headcanon about Blood Saints and these are mainly, that they took so well to the old blood that they pretty much adopted its healing features. I like to think that Amelia was also a Blood Saint and for someone who has blood that is similar to the Old Blood, it would be able to heal minor injuries without trouble. We even see her heal herself in her boss fight, so that headcanon isn't too farfetched.


	12. Prompt: Biting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurence gets bitten by a snake that is probably poisonous but he doesn't want to see the doctor in fear that Master Willem founds out just why he had hunted down snakes in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this fill feels a bit like cheating, because the biting is only the setup for the rest of the story, but hey, the blog itself stated that he fic just had to have the prompt somehow inside of it and a setup for the story would suffice. And because I had this story in mind for quite some time now, I decided to make it a Bingo fill.

Laurence had his eyes focused on his prey and sneaked nearer, ready to grab and tie the animal down. He had managed to get quite a stockpile of the old blood and he was eager to experiment with it... all without Master Willem's knowledge of course. But before he could test it on himself, he needed some lab rats. And the woods around Byrgenwerth had an abundance of snakes, normally shy and timid, they rarely would show themselves. But now he had finally found one and he struck once the guard of the snake was down or so he thought because the next thing he felt was a sharp pain in his left hand and when we looked down he saw that he snake had bitten itself rather tightly into his skin. 

“Ow ow ow... you fucking snake! Let go!”, Laurence complained, waving his arm, trying to get the animal off but it only seemed to bite itself into him harder. It took Laurence a good while and a knife which he used to cut into the animal's skin to finally make the snake let go and slither away into the woods, hissing. He just stood there, pressing a handkerchief at the wound and muttered a few more curses under his breath. 

“The next time I do this I wear gloves.”, he decided and looked at the wounds. To his surprise they weren't that bad. The bleeding was already ceasing. It still hurt, but that was to be expected. He decided to clean the wound out for safety reasons and apply a bandage to it though. He didn't want to get an infection. 

After Laurence had treated the wound on his hand he spend a pretty uneventful evening in his room planning out how to more effectively catching snakes and eventually went to bed so that he would be fit for his studies the next day. They had an exam coming up the next day and while he was confident that he would pass it with ease, he still needed the rest. His hand had stopped hurting in the meantime, actually it felt a little numb. Laurence didn't paid it any attention and went to sleep. 

A few hours later Laurence awoke for his usual nightly bathroom break, though this time it took him a few minutes to get up. He felt like he had a fever... damn, maybe the snake bite had infected after all? That he kinda had trouble feeling his left hand also worried him. He could take a look at it once he went to the bathroom. 

As soon as Laurence had finished his business, he went to the sink and carefully removed the bandage. What he saw wasn't pretty. The bite marks of the snake teeth had taken on an usual purple colour and his hand seemed to have swollen to double the size. This didn't look like an infection at all... more... he never had asked Master Willem if the snakes around Byrgenwerth were poisonous... 

He quickly applied the bandage back thinking about what he should do. He surely couldn't tell Master Willem, he surely would like to know why he got bitten by a snake and then he had to admit to him that he still was researching the old blood despite Master Willem having forbidden it. And he also couldn't go to the doctor, the doctor of the village near Byrgenwerth was a friend of Master Willem and Laurence was a regular patient there... he surely would tell him when Master Willem's protégé would come in with a snake bite. 

Laurence decided to just hope that his immune system would be able to take care of the eventual poison and went back to bed. Should the injury get worse over night, he needed to research more. 

When Laurence awoke the next day the fever seemed to have ceased for now but what certainly hadn't gone away was the swelling in his hand. He also felt a dull pain that went up to his elbow. This wasn't good. 

Laurence quickly dressed himself and freshened himself up a little bit before going to the mess hall for breakfast where he was meeting up with his friends. 

“What happened to your hand, Laurence?”, Micolash asked once he saw that Laurence was awkwardly trying to pick on his food with his non dominant right hand. 

“Nothing serious...”, Laurence said. “I just have cut myself, is all.” Laurence knew that Micolash was his friend but he also was his rival and he didn't trust him to not run to Master Willem when he would tell the truth. 

“Are you sure this is a simple cut?”, Rom, Micolash's girlfriend, asked. “Even with the bandages around it I can see that it's swollen.” 

Laurence flinched at her observation skills and hid his hand under the table. “It was a rather big cut.”, he said. “That is why the bandages are so thick. It bled quite a bit.” 

“You sure you are alright?”, Micolash asked. “We know how easily you get dizzy when you had a larger injury.” 

“I am fine, please don't worry about me.”, Laurence said and stood up before having finished eating, pretty much leaving his confused friends behind. As he rushed out of the mess hall he ran into Gehrman. 

“Good morning, Laurence.”, Gehrman said. “Fresh new day? Hm, you look a bit sick. Are you sure you shouldn't lie down?” 

“I am fine, thanks.”, Laurence said. “I can't stay in bed for every little thing. I have a scholarship to gain. And there is an exam today.”

“Very dedicated.”, Gehrman said. “Then I won't hinder you to take it.” 

As Gehrman went back to his task, which apparently was cleaning the common room, Laurence spoke up again: “Um, Gehrman, a quick question.” 

“Yes?”, Gehrman said, looking up. 

“Are the snakes in the woods poisonous?” 

“Huh... Why are you asking that? Have you got bitten?”, Gehrman put his mop on the ground and gave Laurence a thorough look. “There haven't been many reports of people getting bitten by them, because they are so shy, but if you should see the doctor. He should have all kind of antidotes. I am sure some of them are poisonous.” 

“What? No I don't have gotten bitten.”, Laurence hid the bandaged hand behind his back. “I was just interested in it... I was thinking using them for my studies, you know...” 

“Then I suggest bringing some gloves when you try and catch them.”, Gehrman said. “We will see us later, Laurence, isn't your class starting soon?” 

Indeed the bell was ringing and Laurence all forgot about the pain in his hand and arm and rushed to the class room. 

Once Laurence had taken his seat and picked up a pen the pain came back and it was searing, making Laurence hiss for a moment as the pan clattered to the ground. Just as he was bending down to pick the pen up, he saw a pale hand getting it instead and saw Micolash's face staring at him. 

“Are you sure this is a mere cut?”, Micolash said, giving Laurence the pen. “If it hurts so much, better go to the doctor.” 

“Hm, I just forgot that I can't take a pen in this hand.”, Laurence said, his eyes flashing to his arm. Now that the pain was gone it felt numb again. That started to worry him. He briefly thought about skipping class and read about treating snake bites into the library, but he really didn't want to retake the exam, even though he would need to write with his non dominant hand. 

“You are sure you can take the exam like that?”, Micolash pointed at his hand. “You surely can ask to take it another time.” 

“No... it's fine. I practiced writing with my right hand.”, Laurence said, even though the truth was that it would come to Master Willem would he ask to take the test another time and then Master Willem would want to know what happened to his hand and then he had to admit he had been bitten by a snake and then he had to explain why he had been bitten by a snake and it would ultimately led to Master Willem finding out that he needed test subjects for the blood research. That wasn't going to happen. He would take the exam and then find a method to treat himself in the library. 

Even though Laurence had to use his non dominant hand to take the exam and thus needed longer, he managed to jot down all the right answers. Or at least he hoped he had. The numbing pain in his hand had now travelled up to his upper arm and it was getting more and more distracting. Especially because the numbing pain was broken up by a wave of searing pain once in a while, forcing Laurence to pause and take a few deep breathes to continue with the exam. 

After the exam was filled out, he was sure that the fever had returned. He didn't check the answers on the exam again like he used to but just gave it to the scholar and went out of the classroom. Fortunately when someone applied to scholarship they didn't had to stick to a schedule, as long as they would pass the exams, so skipping a class wouldn't get him in trouble. And because of his good grades the scholars would rarely keep him from going where ever he wanted once he had handed over an exam. Laurence headed straight to the library and pulled out every book about snakes that he found. 

After a good hour of reading which felt like it had been three, because the waves between pain had become smaller now, Laurence had learned a few very interesting snake facts but not which one it was that had bitten him. He closed the book he had been currently reading and opened the next one where finally, he saw a drawing of a snake that looked close like the one who had bitten him. 

“Byrgenwerth Woods Snake?”, Laurence read out aloud. “Really, they are named after this place? Or is the school named after them?” He chuckled a bit but the joy of his fell face when he read further. The snakes were poisonous and apparently, when untreated, their poison would lead to death sooner or later. 

“Damn, why did nobody ever warn us about these things?”, Laurence growled, a memory rising in the back of his mind, of Master Willem telling him that he was allowed to explore the woods but should stay away from the snakes and the labyrinths. 

“Oh right, he told me when I just arrived here...”, Laurence muttered to himself, more concerned what he should do now. He removed the bandage of his hand and cringed as he saw just how swollen and purple the area around the wounds was. And how hot, the skin felt like it was on fire. No wonder that he had a fever. The reasonable thing would be to go to the doctor right now, but he didn't want to. He wouldn't let Master Willem find out that he still researched the blood.

A few things brewed in his head... some kind of a plan. He needed an antidote and he could either make one himself or steal one from the doctor. But for the antidote he needed the snake and he doubted he would find one so soon. 

Maybe he should steal one from the doctor? And try to get the poison out of his blood stream? His reasonable mind just screamed at him to just swallow it, take the lecture of Master Willem who probably would force him to destroy the blood and go to the doctor, but his mind that didn't want to give up on his research, told him that he should go through with the other plan. 

Laurence took the book and went to his room where he locked the door behind him. As he searched around his gaze fell on a vial with the old blood. He wondered if he should try and use it... 

But... he only had found out so far that it would heal wounds when he applied it to an open one. He didn't knew if it could heal poison. He shook the thought off and finally found what he was searching for, the knife he had fend off the snake with yesterday. 

He removed the bandage of his hand and took a few deep breathes. This would probably _hurt_. He gritted his teeth and – after a few tries – managed to cut open the swelling. 

The smell coming from the wound made him gag and he quickly had to swallow down some bile. As he dared to look he could see how wrong his blood looked... or more, it felt like there was only pus coming out from the wound. At least after a while it turned red again but still did look wrong, far too thick and not really like the liquid it should be. 

“Oh dear, what am I doing...”, Laurence thought to himself, applying the bandage back to his hand. He would need the antidote, then he could take care of getting rid of the of the rest of the swelling and pus. 

He determined if anyone was on the hallway and then hurried it down, leaving school to go into the woods, heading straight for the home which housed the sole doctor of the Forest Village. As he headed there, he noticed with worry that even though the cut had hurt like hell only a few minutes ago, the hand was getting numb again. His fever also felt worse and he had trouble seeing. He gritted his teeth and forced his body to hurry.

Arrived at the doctor, Laurence hid himself. He wasn't there as a patient, but as a thief. It made him feel a bit ashamed. He had done a few things the last few months that would be considered highly illegal, all because the old geezer Willem forbid him his research. 

He glanced into the waiting room and when he saw the doctor's secretary and nurse led the next patient into his room which thankfully was the only patient they had at the moment, he hurried into the housre and found the room where the doctor housed his medicine. 

As Laurence entered the room, he almost loudly groaned. There was so much medicine there, how should he find the right one in time. Laurence didn't had a choice but to check the labels. 

But it was there were his luck run out, because he could hear someone coming. He froze and his eyes darted around to find a hiding place, but to no avail and when the nurse entered the room, her eyes grew wide as he flinched. 

“Laurence...?”, she said once she recognized him. “What are you doing here? When you are sick shouldn't you be in the waiting room?” 

“I, um...”, Laurence said, raising both hands or he wanted to raise both, but only managed to raise his right one which was holding up a bottle of medicine right now. When the nurse saw this, her eyes widened even more. 

“Laurence, did you try and STEAL some medicine? Master Willem won't be thrilled to hear about this.”, she said and he could see the disappointment in her gaze. 

“It... it was for a reason...”, Laurence said and he was aware how weak his excuses were. It weren't even excuses. He had been caught red handed. That also was when the nurse noticed his bandaged left hand. 

“Have you hurt yourself?”, she said, some more sympathy in her voice. She knew that he was hurting himself constantly, hence why he was a regular at the doctor. “And did you want to take care of it yourself to not annoy us?” 

“Well...”, Laurence started without ever finishing the sentence. Not exactly. He simply didn't want for Master Willem to found out what he nature of his injury was. 

“Let me take a look at this.”, the nurse said and before Laurence could say anything she had removed the bandage and gasped once she laid eyes on the wound, turning around and shouting: “Doctor, quick, we have a case of slow poisoning.” 

She then turned to Laurence and practically dragged him out of the room. “And you go lay down, why didn't you tell you were bitten by a snake? You are lucky you aren't dead. Just how long have you waited until you came here?” 

Laurence could only let his head hang low... she was right with everything, he had been unreasonable and put his own life in danger just because he feared Master Willem. He let himself drag down without complain and laid down on one of the beds only having to wait a short while until the doctor arrived who applied the antidote and treated the swelling far more graceful than Laurence could have ever done himself and received a rough scolding for him trying to treat himself.

“For being one of the best students at the school, this was an idiotic thing to do, Laurence.”, the doctor scolded him.

“I know...”, Laurence said. His face felt hot and flushing but he didn't knew if it was the fever or his shame. 

“I would like for you to stay overnight until the poison is fully neutralized. Of course, that means we have to tell Master Willem about this.” 

“Please, noooo.”, Laurence groaned, the thing he had feared coming true. “He will want to know why I am having to stay and...”, his words trailed off.

“You are still his protégé, even after you have come of age.”, the doctor said. “We can't make an exception. Also...”, the doctor grew quiet for a while. “You did try to steal from me. I would tell this to Master Willem if your situation hadn't been so dire, so I will let this one slip, but...”, his eyes narrowed. “Try this again and I tell him about both incidences.” 

Laurence just could stare at the doctor before saying: “...alright... I am sorry... I won't do it again.” 

“Good, then I will send for Master Willem. You just make sure that you get healthy again.” 

The doctor left the room and Laurence slid down under his blanket. He wasn't looking forward to Master Willem's visit at all. He just hoped that he had hid all the samples of the old blood he had well enough. 

Oh well, he had given Micolash instructions if such a case should ever happen. He would be able to continue his research with or without Master Willem's approve. 

And he made a mental note to wear extra thick leather gloves the next time he was hunting down a snake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the slow poisoning in game is a lot quicker, but this is obviously for gameplay reasons. So this is my take on it how it works. Also, Laurence and Willem pretty much screamed at each other at Laurence' sick bed until the nurse separated them and Laurence got punished pretty hard.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this work, please consider leaving me a comment or checking out my other works. Thank you very much.


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